‘The green education is working perfectly in the current situation, it is growing’, says Veerman. ‘I say: never change a winning team.’
The green education provides a valuable contribution to society by allowing children of humble origin to learn practical information about caring for animals, the former minister thinks. ‘My daughter teaches at the Wellant College in Dordrecht, an agricultural training that among others teaches children from split families to care for something. Such an institution should not be thrown on the big pile, the ministry of education already has enough worries.’
The former minister thinks that the transfer of green education is an admission of weakness. ‘In the ministry of economic affairs the content management from agriculture and nature has deteriorated in the past year. The transition to the ministry of education is unwise, because that is even further away from the agricultural field. You should not put that on a sector that is suffering from agricultural business succession and nature and the environment.’
Veerman calls on Prime Minister Rutte, who last year spoke out about stopping the transition of green education to the ministry of education. ‘The ministry of OCW want an good added branch of education. It was already like that when I was minister of agriculture, between 2002 and 2007. Back then the minister of education Maria van der Hoeven was also trying to win green education. I opposed. Mark Rutte, Secretary of State for Education back then, supported me, with the words: ‘If something is not broken, you should not try to fix it’. I assume that he still has this opinion.’
We must not fall into discussions about structure, but we should focus on educational quality’, says Veerman. ‘ The Wageningen University is top, it is topping the rankings. You should not discuss about that, you should support it, so that the educational institute can remain the best.’
Parliament: move Wageningen University to Ministry of Education