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“Bottlenecks and tensions”: Dutch cities like Utrecht are particularly popular with international students
Photo: Bas Czerwinski / picture alliance / dpa
There has been discussion in the Netherlands for some time about how to limit the influx of international students. The university association “Universiteiten van Nederland” (UNL) has now agreed on appropriate measures, as it announced on Thursday. For example, the number of English-language bachelor's degree programs at the 14 state universities is to be reduced.
Universities also plan to offer more courses in Dutch. In the future, all important bachelor's degree courses will also be taught in the national language; To do this, the universities are checking which courses can be completely converted into Dutch.
However, new English-language courses of study will not be developed for the time being. Currently, around 30 percent of bachelor's programs at Dutch universities are taught only in English. According to UNL, this proportion should be reduced to 10 to 15 percent. Overall, universities want to do more to teach Dutch to international students and employees.
In addition, universities no longer want to recruit at international trade fairs in the future, it was said, unless it involves courses in sectors with major bottlenecks on the labor market. In general, more exceptions should be allowed for these in order to continue to train particularly sought-after specialists from abroad.
Internationalization is important, but it also leads to "bottlenecks and tensions in society," said Jouke de Vries, interim chairman of the UNL, explaining the measures.
Housing shortage vs. shortage of skilled workers
Education Minister Robbert Dijkgraaf had previously asked universities to develop a corresponding plan. Last April he announced that he wanted to “steer” internationalization at universities in the future because the absorption capacity had been reached. A debate then broke out about the advantages and disadvantages of international students, and even the universities were divided, SPIEGEL reported.
The points of contention: On the one hand, students from abroad would increase the housing shortage and cause lecture halls to be overcrowded; After subsidized training, most of them would not work in the Netherlands. On the other hand, the Dutch economy, like the German one, is dependent on skilled workers from abroad. In the current academic year, around one in three new students comes from abroad, a slight decline compared to the previous year. Around 70 percent of these come from the EU, most of them from Germany.
Not every university is affected equally
The plans now presented are intended to allow for regional differences, which was also one of the points of contention last summer. Because the bottlenecks depend on the location
According to the UNL, the measures at different universities would have a different impact.
The universities said they would now work on development and implementation and would provide the Ministry of Education with a detailed plan in mid-March. The measures will then be implemented next year.
Education Minister Dijkgraaf is also currently preparing a draft law that will further reduce the number of international students. Among other things, it should make it possible for only the English-language strand of a course of study to have admission restrictions and, for example, require an entrance examination, but not the Dutch strand. This is not allowed at the moment.
taf/dpa