NIVOZ

History
NIVOZ (Netherlands Institute for Educational Matters) established as a non profit organisation in 2004 by professor Luc Stevens after his retirement from the University of Utrecht. Stevens is a nationally renowned scholar, whose work places a special emphasis on school reforms. His pedagogical vision has been inspired and nurtured by his work with children with motivation and learning disabilities but is equally relevant for ordinary as well as for highly talented children.

Vision
We embarked on our initiative for two principal reasons.
The first is the much‑discussed emergence in The Netherlands of a knowledge‑based economy.  Today and for the foreseeable future, our nation is and will be generating wealth principally through knowledge, information, and services.  If the nation is to preserve its standard of living and protect the quality of life of its citizens, it must place priority on producing a highly educated work force.
The second reason for our investment is a required paradigm shift in the conception of how children learn in schools. From a standards and fixed curriculum driven system we need to redirect our focus towards the nurturing of individual talents. The overall task of the education system is not to primarily to bring across a certain curriculum but to get as much out of individual talents as possible. An educational system capable not only of generating well-informed and skilled students, but also of stimulating students to recognise and develop their individual talents, demands a lot of its educators. Therefore, the advancement of high-quality teaching makes a very significant contribution to the accomplishing of that task.

Objective
We believe that by shifting the paradigm of educational leaders and teachers from curriculum to talent we can change the way they think about and carry out their work.

Modus Operandi
NIVOZ acts as a think-tank with three functions:
1. a scientific research centre with regard to best practices and innovations within education
2. an academy for educational leaders and teachers placing talent in the centre of attention.
3. a forum where leading views on education in its widest sense can be heard, exchanged and criticized with the purpose of generating inspiration and fuelling the public debate.

NIVOZ strives for a diverse network of both national and international institutions and individuals to cooperate and liaise with in its efforts to enhance the education system.

Video:
Sir Ken Robinson: "Creativity is as important in education as literacy, and we should treat it with the same status."

Sir Ken Robinson is internationally recognised leader and adviser in the development of creativity, innovation and human resources for international governments, companies and NGOs. In his brilliantly funny and insightful speech in the above video, he relates how he once saw his son’s kindergarten class perform the nativity play. At the moment the three kings came in bearing their gifts, one of them momentarily lost his line. Thus, after the first king announced "I bring you gold" and the second "I bring you myrrh", the third, instead of introducing his gift of 'frankincense', said: "Frank sent this." 

For Robinson this example shows how children dare to take a chance: "If they don’t know, they’ll have a go. They are not frightened of being wrong." The courage to make mistakes is part of creativity, he contends. As we grow up, we become more and more afraid of being wrong. Why? Because, as Robinson has it: "We get educated out of creativity."