UNL response to letter to the House of Representatives about managing international student flows

This approach will impoverish education, deprive us of important scientific talent and also scare away international students, whom we desperately need in our country. Earlier this year, the universities proposed a careful approach, with universities and degree programmes taking targeted measures together so that the Netherlands does not lose its leading position as a knowledge economy, while controlling the intake and increasing the role of the Dutch language in academic education.

Bill incompatible with cuts announced by the government

The bill is incompatible with the cuts in the budget for international students announced by this government. Indeed, the bill talks about a careful assessment of foreign-language degree programmes to bring more balance to the system. At the same time, however, this government has already anticipated the outcome by specifying a reduction of 34,000 European Bachelor’s students. There are currently 44,000 European Bachelor’s students in universities and 28,000 in universities of applied sciences.

This is an austerity exercise that harms the international character of higher education. It is likely to be accompanied by the forced closure of degree programmes, with major consequences for the quality of Dutch academic research. In addition, it remains to be seen whether this restriction on international intake is legally feasible, given European treaties on the free movement of persons.

New Council of State review needed

Minister Bruins announced in the letter that he wants to tighten the criteria of the Foreign Language Education Test (Toets Anderstalig Onderwijs, TAO). This drastically changes the impact of the Balanced Internationalisation Bill. As a consequence, UNL believes that a fresh review of the bill by the Council of State is required. In fact, in its earlier opinion, the Council of State indicated that the TAO should be used as a final resort. Clearly, this is by no means the case in the far-reaching plans of Minister Bruins.