As far as is known, the VU is the first university to discontinue the cum laude qualification upon graduation. This is now given if a student has an average score of 8 or higher for exams and has no lower than a 7 for any subject. With the removal of cum laude, the emphasis should be placed on learning instead of performing. ‘It’s no longer about the individual who wants to excel, but about someone who wants to learn and work together as a team,’ said the head of the master’s program Hester Daelmans in Het Parool.
It is already difficult for students to be admitted to medical school. Subsequently, especially in the master’s phase, students also compete with each other for scarce places for specialization.
‘In the study information it is already indicated that only the minority will specialize, but many students still intend to become specialists in hospitals,’ says Kimberly Bosch, third-year Bachelor’s student of Medicine in Groningen and chair of the ProMed participation council. ‘That’s why you have to excel and distinguish yourself.’ In addition to achieving high grades, doing unpaid volunteer work in care is almost a requirement.
Bosch believes there is a good chance that other medical courses will follow. ‘This doesn’t just come out of the blue, it has been a topic of discussion at a national level for some time now.’
Flowers
from a research among 18,500 medical students of the interest association De Medicine Student, it was found last year that students spend an average of 56 hours a week on their internships. For about 20 percent of them, the chance of a burnout is very high. There is also pressure to perform in other studies: 76 percent of students suffer from this, it turned out in 2021 a study by the Trimbos Institute, the RIVM and the GGD. This often results in stress and sleeping problems.
The National Student Union (LSvB) thinks that abolishing the cum laude qualification could also be a solution for other students. ‘Educational institutions and teachers are now exerting a lot of pressure to perform excellently,’ says chair Ama Boahene. ‘A six isn’t good enough. I personally experienced that flowers were ready for the cum laude students at a law graduation ceremony, but not for the other students. Studying should be more about developing yourself and being happy.’
According to Boahene, it is not because of the current generation of students, who would not be used to anything anymore. ‘People forget that studying now is different from twenty or thirty years ago. You have to distinguish yourself with high marks, volunteer work, a board year and also work. In addition, the housing market is overheated, we are in debt and we are facing a climate crisis. That’s too much.’