EP-Nuffic hereby announces their intention to enter into a concession agreement regarding the development of an English end-of-primary-school attainment test that caters specifically to Dutch primary schools offering Early English.

The past 10 years a lot of progress has been made in the Netherlands when it comes to Early English. The number of schools offering Early English has increased gradually to about 1100. Earlier this year, EP-Nuffic has set up the National Network Early English, in order to coordinate the improvement of the quality of Early English programmes in the Netherlands.

Despite the progress made in the past 10 years, there are no set end-of-primary-school attainment levels for English, nor is there a test to measure the exit levels of students at the end of primary school. In order to further facilitate the continued development of Early English programmes in the Netherlands, EP-Nuffic would like to invite parties to put together an offer for an end-of-primary-school attainment test that caters to the needs of Dutch Primary schools offering Early English.

The test will serve the following purposes:

— The test should give students an indication of their level of English, thereby validating their achievement, preferably by means of a certificate;

— The test results will inform primary schools of the exit levels of English of their students;

— The test results will inform secondary schools of the level of English of their new students, thereby further facilitating a continuous programme of study between primary and secondary education;

— Test data will be made available to the National Network Early English and Dutch research partners, in order to facilitate the continued development and improvement of Early English programmes in the Netherlands. EP-Nuffic hopes to use test data to define reference levels for Dutch Early English schools.

Preference will be given to parties that can meet a spring 2016 deadline, so the first test can be conducted at the end of the school year 2015-2016.