Slow-progress penalty, fewer international students, less science… The cabinet is still planning to make cuts in higher education and research. The Dutch Research Council (NWO) and open science will also have to tighten their belts.
About two hundred protesters came to Domplein in Utrecht on Monday morning for the ‘Alternative opening’ of the new academic year. Down with the cutbacks, was the message. Perhaps there will even be a strike.
The academic year started on Monday 2 September, as did the protests against the announced cuts in Dutch higher education. Those cuts will go ahead. That’s the message given by Education Minister Eppo Bruins in response to written questions from the House of Representatives.
The fine for taking a long time to finish their studies is causing a lot of stress, worry and is making doing a degree programme in higher education extra hard for students with disabilities, says Marissa van der Tol, Chair of Student Onbeperkt. “And that while we already are 3-0 behind other students.” She argues for students with a disability being exempted from the ruling.
Hundreds of students, lecturers, higher education executives and opposition politicians took to the streets of Utrecht on Saturday in protest at the new government’s plans to fine delayed graduation and its proposed cuts to higher education and research.
Project groups of first-year mechanical engineering students were given 10 minutes to stack 25 crates using a machine they designed themselves. But in the finals, everyone finished much sooner.
Which regions or degree programmes will soon be able to continue recruiting foreign students in the face of new government restrictions? A roundtable discussion with education delegates at the House of Representatives gave a taste of the issues at stake.
Some 130 aerospace engineering master students have been working on building an aircraft since 2017. They do this during the hands-on course Aircraft Manufacturing Lab, a hands-on course where you learn to be consistent and to never cover up mistakes.
Fewer and fewer Dutch students are entering the English-language Aerospace Engineering bachelor’s programme. The EEMCS Faculty was able to admit more Dutch students for Computer Science and Engineering through a Dutch-English variant. How does this control work?
