In fact you should turn 16 in 4th grade. Please allow me to elaborate
In my country (.nl):
Age 4-12 = Primary school
Age 13-16 (VMBO) |
Age 13-17 (HAVO) | = Secondary School
Age 13-18 (VWO) |
There's three different groups in secondary school, from Average intelligence/learning capacity to Higher. This is decided in your last year in primary school, and further investigated in your first two years of secondary school. The follow-up studies are also adapted to cater these three groups. You can switch, grow and do quite anything if you have the intelligence to do so.
I for instance, did VWO and was allowed to go to uni directly. My gf did VMBO and her 4th year was the graduation in that group. She chose to do the higher group (HAVO), ended up in the fourth grade, did the fifth and graduated in the second group as well. Then she did to a follow-up study to become a teacher, which would have been impossible if she only graduated from VMBO.
It's even possible to climb from VMBO to HAVO to VWO (you'll be twenty once you finally graduate) and go to uni but it's quite unique (since you didn't end up in the lowest group for nothing). I actually know a guy who managed this, but he's weird - in a special way.
I guess they created these three groups so to educate the kids at their own intelligence level. You can offer the smarter kids more challenging information and increasingly less theory and more practice oriented content to the others.
I shall now cease to bore the hell out of you. Please accept the following as an apology:
[edit]total reconstruction Edited, Sep 3rd 2008 4:49pm by Hence