Zijlstra: ‘geen kwaliteitsverlaging onderwijs TU’

De partijen dienden hun vragen in nadat er begin januari commotie was ontstaan over een vermeende kwaliteitsverlaging van het onderwijs aan de TU. Het begon met een persbericht van de VSSD. De Delftse studentenvakbond luidde daarin de noodklok  over het schrappen van vakken en het compenseren van onvoldoendes, onder dwang van regeringsmaatregelen.

Vervolgens namen vele media het verhaal over en moest het college van bestuur overal uitleggen dat er niet getornd zou worden aan de kwaliteit.

Volgens Zijlstra is er niets aan de hand. “Er wordt met de maatregelen van de TU Delft niet getornd aan de kwaliteit van de opleidingen. Doel is de studeerbaarheid te verbeteren en het daardoor voor studenten mogelijk te maken het programma binnen de tijd die daarvoor staat af te ronden.”

Zijlstra meldt dat visitatiecommissies bij de drie technische universiteiten ‘bij herhaling hebben aangegeven dat de kwaliteit van de opleidingen hoog is, maar dat dat ook geldt voor de studielast’.  Die studielast kan volgens de staatssecretaris omlaag zonder dat de onderwijskwaliteit in het geding komt door: ‘minder dubbelingen en parallelle onderdelen, vermindering van verouderde of ‘nice to have’-informatie, en grotere, meer geïntegreerde eenheden en realistische normering van de studielast’.

Voor Zijlstra komen die maatregelen niet uit de lucht vallen: “De uitwerking van de plannen voor verbetering van de onderwijskwaliteit staat in het Sectorplan Technologie van de drie TU’s. Eind 2011 zijn ze gestart met de uitvoering hiervan. De opleidingen hebben nadrukkelijk de opdracht gekregen om goed te kijken naar de studielast.”

Het compenseren van onvoldoendes is ook prima in Zijlstras ogen. Het is wettelijk toegestaan. Bovendien verhoogt de TU juist de eisen aan de student, meldt Zijlstra. “Zo is er het streven om in 2015 te komen tot een gemiddeld aantal behaalde studiepunten per student per jaar van 45 ECTS en komt er intensievere studiebegeleiding. Ik verwacht hiervan positieve effecten op de kwaliteit.”

When professor Marja Elsinga studied housing ecology at Wageningen University, she focussed on the influence of the built environment on people. After graduating in 1989, she shifted her focus from ecology to economy, because it is no longer the architects who dominate the world of construction and housing. Financial institutions have taken their place. Elsinga (Technology, Policy and Management) argues: “Economic science dominates the analyses of the housing market.”

Elsinga wrote her PhD thesis (cum laude) ‘Home ownership for low-income groups’ (1995) under the supervision of Professor Hugo Priemus, Jan van Weesep and Peter Boelhouwer. More than a decade later mortgages for low-income groups were at root of the worldwide financial crisis. For Prof. Elsinga the crisis illustrates what can go wrong if moneymaking is the only thing that counts. She explains how mortgage banks in the US, on the hunt for new clients, discovered people earning low incomes who also wanted to share in the American Dream of home ownership. Special products were developed for these low income earners at low initial interest rates that would slowly rise. Not much of a problem as long as the underlying value of the homes continued to rise. But they didn’t. By that point, the mortgage banks had ‘packaged’ the risky mortgages and passed them on to other banks. Elsinga continues: “The US stretched the risks in the housing market to the maximum and then sold them to Europe.”

Dutch housing policy has a good international reputation. International students especially come to Delft attracted by a housing system that is under pressure to change, according to Prof. Elsinga. One pillar is the role of housing associations that not only provide dwellings for people with lower and middle incomes, but which also participate in keeping the inner cities liveable. “They have a good reputation in urban renewal,” the professor says. Another Dutch peculiarity is the fact that home owners may subtract the interest they pay on their mortgages from their income tax. According to Elsinga, this ‘mortgage interest deduction’, originally a 19th century invention to allow owners of large rental dwellings a tax benefit, has corrupted the housing market.

So where did it go wrong?
“The tax authorities should never have agreed in ‘saving mortgages’ that allow you to deduct the maximum amount of interest over the entire 30 years. This is just one example of a host of products especially developed to have a maximum tax benefit. But it corrupts the system. Home ownership was encouraged by the government to make people financially secure in old age. Instead, what the system now does is to encourage people to have maximum mortgages and not build up any equity. Young households with interest-only mortgages [interest is paid only on the debt, but the debt itself remains, ed.] are in danger. When the house prices go down, you start with negative equity. When you then have to move house for reasons of work or relationships, you share a debt instead of a financial security. All the experts agree – and they don’t often agree – that something must change in the mortgage interest deduction.”

And what about the other Dutch pride: the housing associations?
“The associations used to play an important role in urban renewal, but the present right wing government wants to reduce their role. The associations are to sell part of their properties and increasingly allocate dwellings to lower income groups. Housing associations are turned into a safety net that only provides housing for the most vulnerable people. But we have a tradition, like Switzerland, Austria and France, in a much more corporatist model where housing associations not only provide affordable housing but also participate in urban policy and urban renewal. I plead to recognise that role and find a way to give it a future.” 

Professor Marja Elsinga delivers her inaugural address on Friday, 4 March in the Aula at 15:00 hours. It can be watched online at www.tudelft.now.nl