Chapter 6. Conclusion have different needs, and additional support may be required to ensure that everyone can make full use of the opportunities available. At the same time, policymakers must carefully weigh their efforts, considering both the benefits for those who gain from them and the costs for those who do not benefit directly. If the gap is reduced because higher-performing students stagnate or decline, the reduction may not reflect genuine improvement. Thus, although closing achievement gaps between groups is often seen as a goal, aimed at ensuring equity and fairness for all students, focusing solely on ”closing the gap” can sometimes distract from what really matters: ensuring that no individual is left illiterate or innumerate. The aim should be to provide every student with the skills they need to function in life, while also ensuring that the potential of all students is fully realized, regardless of how they perform relative to their peers. Policymakers should implement support for students being at risk of being illiterate and innumerate. Therefore, it is crucial for them to inform themselves about which students are in need, which in itself can be a challenging task. It is essential that interventions aimed at fostering skill development are evidence-based. Therefore, policymakers should actively seek information on which interventions have proven to be effective for which specific group of students. Several initiatives provide comprehensive overviews of successful interventions implemented before and during schooling. In the Netherlands, one such initiative is of the Netherlands Youth Institute (‘Nederlands Jeugdinstituut’ in Dutch), which maintains a database of evidence-based interventions.1 For instance, they 1See www.nji.nl. 150
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