Internationally, it is very modern, all those foreign students and English-taught courses. “But it’s just too much. Uh, too much”, Pieter Omtzigt started on Tuesday in the House of Representatives.
Dutch language education is not doing well and now that more than four out of ten new students are of foreign origin, politicians are considering measures. But conducting such a debate in impeccable Dutch turned out to be quite difficult. “Something has to be done, but we don’t want to brain drain ‘, warned Minister Robbert Dijkgraaf of Education.
Would any training with expats than a no go should be, asked Jeanet van der Laan of D66? No, thought Lisa Westerveld of GroenLinks, some foreign students are good, but in recent years there was one boost . ,,Or how do you say that in Dutch?” ,,Acceleration”, Dijkgraaf helped her.
Upper middle class , tracks and incentives
Omtzigt himself indicated that he sometimes has difficulty finding the Dutch words because of his studies in Italy. That’s what he was talking about ‘upper middle class’ students from Bulgaria and Italy.
Hatte van der Woude of the VVD proposed a limit to programs with an English language tracks and wanted to research the stay rate of foreign students. And several MPs wanted a brake on the wrong one incentives for universities, or incentives.
Broadly speaking, the entire House of Representatives and the Minister agree that the maximum number of foreign students has now been reached. But Dijkgraaf is still tinkering with the university boards on a detailed plan that he does not want to discuss with politicians until later.
Shrink regions viable
The liberal parties VVD and D66 seem to be the least concerned and also point to the need to present something internationally. Parties such as the SP, CDA and in particular PVV and Omtzigt make the large number of foreign students a bigger problem and the PvdA believes that schools in shrinking regions should be able to remain more viable with extra students from across the border.
SP member Peter Kwint had noticed during a trip to Madrid that Dutch universities of applied sciences were recruiting students there. That was less than a week after the minister had publicly called on schools to stop recruiting.
Well, Dijkgraaf replied. “They are very large institutions, so it is quite possible that the boards were somewhat embarrassed because not everyone had received the memo yet. But there was agreement at the board level.”