Update Executive Board: Response to parliamentary letter on internationalisation
The Schoof cabinet has presented its budget. As expected, higher education is facing severe cuts. In the coming period, the Executive Board will regularly look at the consequences of what it deems an irresponsible policy.
The Minister of Education, Culture and Science, Eppo Bruins, outlined his vision on internationalisation in a parliamentary letter on 15 October. He wants to severely limit the number of international students wanting to come to study in the Netherlands. He also wants Dutch to be the norm once again as the language of instruction and administration.
The Universities of the Netherlands (UNL) are fiercely critical of these plans (in Dutch). ‘Universities are deeply concerned about the government’s plans. The name of the bill is “Balanced Internationalisation” but this government is launching a savage attack on universities, with further cuts of 293 million euros to the intake of international students’, said President Casper van den Berg on behalf of the Universities of the Netherlands.
He added, ‘This approach will deplete education, rob us of important academic talent and scare off the international students our country so desperately needs.’
Leiden University’s Executive Board is also critical and concerned. ‘The plans outlined by the minister in the parliamentary letter are deeply troubling’, said Executive Board President, Annetje Ottow. ‘International students and staff contribute greatly to our higher education and research and are hugely important to society. Our priority will be to discuss this with our student and staff community through our representation bodies as well as with the deans and other management staff. We will look together at what this will mean for our university.’
‘We will not take this lying down’, Ottow stressed. ‘We will do all we can – alone and with UNL – to prevent this from happening. This will include lobbying and holding talks in The Hague and supporting the national day of action for higher education on 14 November in Utrecht and other protests, student or otherwise. We are already working behind the scenes on scenarios and our own strategy for resisting these plans.’