Who is PAEPON?
PAEPON is the umbrella organization for all qualitative privately funded education in the Netherlands. By means of a qualitative screening before allowing any educational institution to become a member, PAEPON serves as a guide for the consumers.

Private tuition is the most traditional form of education and is nowadays common practice. Ranging from tuition on an individual level to correspondence courses and from corporate courses to language courses, all of these are part of the spectrum of privately funded tuition.

The role of PAEPON within the spectrum of educational institutions in the Netherlands
A majority of the members, are institutions designated by the government to award recognized certificates/diplomas, in the same way as public (government funded) educational institutions. However, an educational institution does not need to be an institution designated by the government, to still offer decent education that provides what the consumer is after.

By becoming a member of PAEPON, these institutions underwrite a code of conduct which is meant to protect the consumer. In addition membership provides a way to continuously re-evaluate the link between tuition and market, by means of discussions and workshops. 
The privately funded tuition is often active in areas of market innovation and provides education tailored to a wide variety of consumers. This emphasis on market-viability (responsively), together with flexibility and a small scale operation (regardless of the monetary turnover) fulfils a demand that is not easily provided for by the government-funded educational institutions.

Four statements of core-activities of PAEPON

• PAEPON is a vehicle for self-assembly for the market of suppliers of education.
• Privately funded education is an essential element of any activity aimed at raising the average level of education of the population (Lisbon accords).
• Privately funded education is a necessary condition for the bottom-up development of technical education and as such, a condition for innovation.
• Because privately funded education operates closer to the market than any public educational institution does or can, it functions more goal-oriented. This argument can not be left out when discussing the efficiency of the public educational system.