School Holiday Activities in the Netherlands

Hi and thanks for your question.

In the Netherlands, they have the Bouwvak; the country is split into 3 regions (Noord, Midden and Zuid) and each region has set dates for their summer holidays, this year Nord had 26 July > 13 August, Midden had from 2 > 20 Aug and Zuid have 9 > 27 Aug); they do this to try and not have the entire country all go on holiday at the same time and put an extremely busy road network under pressure which would cause severe issues.

Out of school activities are organised on a regional basis; where our kids went to school, they took over a local sports hall and had all sorts of fun play and sport-related things organised by the local council (Gemeente) and other sport and activity-specific Associations (Vereniging); also media events, like the local theatres and choirs would organise days to show their abilities (and perhaps recruit next years participants).  Because the country was split into 3, these events could move around the country and so share the costs and the abilities.

Effectively what the Bouwvak does is close down the nations civil service, you can't get anything done between 26 July and 27 August.  If you phone them up, you will normally be told that the Vak has caused a reduce service, or Mevrouw so and so is not available as she is covering for another colleague in another region.

But it's good fun.

Cynic
Expat Team