A Romanian organisation has helped 260 students get fictitious jobs over the past five years so that they could apply for study grants in the Netherlands. This was revealed in response to parliamentary questions.
On paper, the construction was watertight. The student’s family gave money to this organisation (GCRS), which transferred that money to the student as a salary, supposedly for freelance journalistic work. That ‘salary’ allowed the student to apply for student loans from DUO. This ‘salary’ was then transferred back to the family. The construction was discovered by Romanian journalists and the Groningen Ukrant wrote about it earlier this year.
MP Pieter Omtzigt asked written questions about it. Among other things, he wanted to know how many Romanians received study financing thanks to GCRS.
There were about 260 of them in the past five years, the ministry reported, 45 of them this autumn. There could have been many more, as according to the latest figures, there are 6,700 Romanian students studying in the Netherlands.
According to outgoing minister Dijkgraaf, DUO cannot do anything against these constructions. the body is only allowed to assess whether students are entitled to study financing. However, he wants to see what is possible to combat these constructions. (HOP, BB)
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