Education
Pupils, students, diplomas and level of education. 5 sources, 2 international.
Pupils in primary education: 1.36 million in 2025/26, 10% less than in 1996/97
Government spending on education: 5.1 percent of GDP in 2024, the same as in 1995
Pupils and students by type of education: primary education is the largest part, 38% in 2025/'26
Publications per Dutch educational institution (OpenAlex): most Utrecht University (9,983 publications), then University of Amsterdam and University of Groningen
People with basic digital skills and people aged 65 and over in EU countries: no clear relationship
People with at least basic digital skills in the Netherlands: higher than in 26 of the 26 other EU countries
More from the data
All 30 examplesUniversity students: 336 thousand in 2025/'26, 120 times as much as in 1900/'01
People aged 25–34 with higher education and gDP per person in EU countries: the higher one, the higher the other, mostly
Vocational (MBO) students by field: most Health and social care (141,737 students), then Business and administration and Engineering and process industry
DANS DOIs per publication year, counted in DataCite (prefix 10.17026): 14,943 DOIs in 2025, 4 times as much as in 2008
People aged 25–34 with tertiary education in the Netherlands: higher than in 22 of the 26 other EU countries
People aged 15 to 75 by education level: high (higher education) is the largest part, 38% in 2025
Students in secondary vocational education (mbo): 467 thousand in 2025/'26, 6.2 times as much as in 1950/'51
Senior general secondary (havo) graduates: 41.6 thousand per year in 2024/'25, 42% more than in 1972/'73
15-year-olds with poor reading skills in the Netherlands: higher than in 20 of the 26 other EU countries
International students in higher education: 130.2 thousand in 2025/'26, 3.9 times as much as in 2005/'06
Pre-university (vwo) graduates: 31.2 thousand per year in 2024/'25, 3.7 times as much as in 1950/'51
4TU.ResearchData DOIs per publication year, counted in DataCite (prefix 10.4121): 3,047 DOIs in 2025, 9.1 times as much as in 2013
Sources
4TU.ResearchData
The data repository of the 4TU federation (TU Delft, TU Eindhoven, University of Twente and Wageningen University & Research). According to its homepage 12,494 datasets with 191,894 files and about 102 TB (16 October 2026), mostly engineering, water, coast, climate and traffic, often as NetCDF with OPeNDAP. Each dataset has a DOI with prefix 10.4121 and its own licence, usually Creative Commons. The software is called djehuty and has a Figshare-like API.
DANS Data Stations
DANS, the Dutch national centre for research data of KNAW and NWO, runs four Data Stations on Dataverse: Archaeology (176,448 datasets, 102,024 of them finds from Portable Antiquities of the Netherlands), Social Sciences and Humanities (8,162), Life Sciences (1,110) and Physical and Technical Sciences (898). Metadata are always public; files are open under a Creative Commons licence or restricted under the DANS Licence. DataCite counts 189,177 DOIs with the DANS prefix 10.17026 (16 October 2026).
DUO open education data
Every school and programme with its address, and per school location the number of pupils, school advice, end-of-primary test scores, exam results and forecasts. From primary school to university. DUO publishes it as downloads and as an API (56 datasets with 274 tables in the datastore on 16 October 2026).
OECD Data Explorer
Over 1,500 OECD tables on work, income, taxes, education, health, housing and the environment. Measured the same way for every member country, so good for comparing the Netherlands with countries outside Europe, such as the United States, Japan or Canada.
Dutch research in OpenAlex, OpenAIRE, ROR and DataCite
Four open registries together give a picture of Dutch research. OpenAlex (CC0) knows 2,169,548 works with at least one Dutch institution, 101,270 of them from 2025, and 1,869 Dutch institutions. OpenAIRE Graph counts 3,718,728 research products with country NL. ROR gives 1,916 Dutch organisations a persistent identifier. DataCite holds the DOIs of datasets, including those of DANS and 4TU.ResearchData. All without a key (as of 16 October 2026).
In the harvested indexes
2,526 datasets in data.overheid.nl, the National Georegister and city portals with a subject belonging to this topic: Onderwijs en wetenschap, Education and science, Hoger onderwijs, Voortgezet onderwijs, Beroepsonderwijs.
Who publishes most
Rotterdam867
Centraal Bureau voor de Statistiek552- Dienst Uitvoering Onderwijs96
- DUO71
Groningen (gemeente)18
Utrecht (gemeente)15- IOInspectie van het Onderwijs7
Eindhoven (gemeente)6- SLstichting-leerplan-ontwikkeling6
- Ooverig5
- SBSamenwerkingsorganisatie Beroepsonderwijs Bedrijfsleven4
- AZMinisterie van Algemene Zaken2
Recently changed
- Speciaal basisonderwijsdataportaal Eindhoven
- Voortgezet, VSO/SO, middelbaar en hoger onderwijsEindhoven (gemeente)
- Bevolking; hoogstbehaald onderwijsniveau en regioCentraal Bureau voor de Statistiek
- HO_Erkenningen_RIODUO
- BasisscholenEindhoven (gemeente)
- SportaccommodatiesEindhoven (gemeente)
- ho_opleidingsoverzichtDUO
- HO OpleidingsoverzichtDUO
- Overzicht Erkenningen hoDUO
- controlebestandDUO