Multilingual Early Language Transmission (MELT) - Mercator ...

2.2 Fryslân in the Netherlands
2.2.1 Background information
In 1997, the Northern Province of the Netherlands lost its official Dutch name to the Frisian
name ‘Fryslân.’ Nevertheless, ‘Friesland’ remains in common usage, being the Dutch (and
international) name for the province. Fryslân has about 646.486 inhabitants. 20 Recent
research shows that 84.6% of all inhabitants understand the Frisian language very well
(64,6%) or good (20%). 21 Slightly more than half of the Frisians has Frisian as mother tongue:
56%. And about 50% of the parents speak Frisian to their children. 22
In 2011, there are 43 trilingual (Frisian, Dutch and English) primary schools and 105 bilingual
(Frisian and Dutch) and Frisian medium pre-school organisations in the province of Fryslân. It
is estimated that more than 10.000 children in the Province Fryslân visit day-care centres,
crèches, playgroups or other pre-school organisations. 23
The percentage of children going to day-care centres, based on the statistics of 2007
(assumedly the numbers haven’t changed significantly) is about 47%. This depends very
much on the area people live in. In rural areas this percentage is lower than in urban areas. 24
In 2005, the national Child Care Act (‘De Wet kinderopvang’) came into force. The main
concern of the Act was to set rules for contributions towards the costs of childcare and the
quality of child provisions. In 2010, the Child Care Act was changed into the Act OKE
(‘Ontwikkelingskansen door kwaliteit en educatie’, Opportunities through quality education
and development). Since then, municipalities are responsible for offering educative
programs. Local authorities and the pre-school provisions are responsible to ensure a
comprehensive system of recruitment and guidance to pre-school education, in order to
develop a continuous line of learning from pre-school to primary school. All early childhood
organisations and provisions are involved and work together to stimulate an optimal
development of the child.
Language use in the pre-school provisions
All bilingual (Frisian and Dutch) and total immersion (Frisian) pre-school provisions belong to
the SFBO network (SFBO, Sintrum Frysktalige Berneopfang 25 , what can be translated as the
Centre for Frisian Language Child Care). In the bilingual provisions practitioners speak either
Frisian or Dutch to the children divided in either by periods of time or persons and in
monolingual provisions the target and instruction language to the children and parents is
only Frisian.
20 Provinsje Fryslân, Fryslân yn sifers- www.fryslân.nl [Accessed June 2011].
21 Provinsje Fryslân, De Fryske taalatlas- www.fryslan.nl/taalatlas [Accessed June 2011].
22 Gorter D.& Jonkman R. J. (1995) Taal yn Fryslân: op 'e nij besjoen. Leeuwarden: Fryske Akademy.
23 Provinsje Fryslân, De Fryske taalatlas- www.fryslan.nl/taalatlas [Accessed June 2011].
24 Rijksoverheid, www.rijksoverheid.nl [21/06/2011] Note: the stated percentage is for The Netherlands as a whole, Friesland is more rural
so the expectancy is that the percentage in Friesland is lower.
25 In paragraph 5.2.4 the foundation SFBO will be further described.
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