Education minister defends recruitment of international engineering students

As tech studies become more popular, this could come at the expense of healthcare and education programmes, acknowledges education minister Eppo Bruins. This is partly why technical programmes continue to bring in students from abroad.

Last spring, chip manufacturer ASML threatened to leave the Netherlands because of restrictions on the influx of foreign students and highly skilled migrants, prompted in particular by the PVV and NSC. In response, the previous cabinet made 450 million euros available, plus 80 million euros a year from 2031, to recruit more students for engineering studies. This plan is called ‘Beethoven’.

Recruitment campaigns

Government party NSC asked written questions about this plan. It wants to know how these funds will ensure more technicians. Bruins has no concrete answer to this, but suggests that companies and educational institutions can develop programmes to attract international students to jobs in the microchip sector and adapt their recruitment campaigns to break ‘gender bias’.

Bruins acknowledged the NSC’s concerns that the potential success of engineering studies could come at the expense of healthcare and education. Therefore, according to the minister, regions are working to ‘enlarge the pool of talent’. He mentions upskilling and retraining of workers, but also ‘the targeted attraction of international talent’.

Other countries are also struggling with a shortage of technicians, he explained. One solution in those countries: once their engineering students have gone abroad, they want them to return to the ‘home country’. (HOP, BB)