No debate, but a working group. That was the rather surprising outcome of the action taken by University Council chairman Herman Kingma in the dispute between the Executive Board and the student fraction in the University Council about the instalment payments of the institute’s tuition fees.

During the next four years, the so-called institute's tuition fees will slowly rise and different rates will apply to different studies. Law or business administration students will pay less than medical students. This was an official advice, which was more or less accepted by the Executive Board.

No debate, but a working group. That was the rather surprising outcome of the action taken by University Council chairman Herman Kingma in the dispute between the Executive Board and the student fraction in the University Council about the instalment payments of the institute’s tuition fees.

Matching and Binding project FASOS: outcome is good indicator for study success

Significantly fewer UK students have applied for a place at a university in their own country for next academic year. The number has dropped by nearly 9 percent, according to recent figures of the British admission service UCAS. The main reason for the fall is the high level of tuition fees. One of the European universities that benefits, is Maastricht University, with most of its courses entirely in English and a much lower fee of €1,713.

Philipp Dorstewitz, lecturer at Maastricht University since 2007, spent two years as a personal mentor to Saif al-Islam Gaddafi, son and envisaged successor of the former Libyan leader. Saif Gaddafi started his master’s in philosophy at the London School of Economics in 2002. Dorstewitz was a PhD student at the time. The Daily Telegraph published an article last month in which Dorstewitz’ name appeared. He was said to have been paid handsomely by and even to have written essays for the Libyan.

State secretary Zijlstra intends to deprive master’s students from their entitlement to a basic grant, with effect from September. This also affects students who started a two-year or three-year master’s study last September. The same applies to foreign master’s students who work in the Netherlands for 32 hours per month and hence have a right to a full Dutch study grant; they will also lose their basic grants. The bill is now in the Lower House.

A decision will be made next spring about a new sports hall. The Vice-President of the Executive Board, André Postema, announced this recently in a committee meeting of the University Council. At the earliest, a fully functional hall will be there after the summer of 2014.

More user-friendly, greater functionality and faster, because of less unnecessary content, those were the requirements of the new Eleum version. The School of Business and Economics and the Faculty of Psychology have been using it since 6 February, the rest of the university will follow next academic year.

More students than ever won the Student Prize this year. The Faculty of Health, Medicine and Life Sciences awarded the prize to two students, and the winning thesis of the Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences was a group effort. The subjects of the theses were very broad, ranging from social media to malaria. Observant spoke with two of the winners. 

Germany has no intention to compensate the Netherlands for German students who come here to study. They only want to make Europe-wide agreements.

The International Classroom has much more to do with integration and group dynamics than education. So it is not a synonym for a tutorial group that includes a number of nationalities. It is about much, much more, write Fred Stevens and Jacqueline Goulbourne, authors of the UM memo ‘The international classroom project’.

Employment opportunities for young academics in the Netherlands will remain good for the coming years. Economic prospects may not be great, but there will be enough jobs because older employees are about to retire.

The last issue of Mosaïek, the interdisciplinary magazine of the Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences, sold out and is now being reprinted due to high demand. Two years ago, the magazine created by students for students was almost dead in the water.

It is not just for the very best students, but for everyone that philosopher René Gabriëls started his own honours programme on Wednesday 14 December at five o’clock in the afternoon, in the Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences’ bar. As a protest and outside the curriculum.

Having received permission from the Ministry of Education earlier this year, the School of Business and Economics can now select all students for its programmes with a limited number of places. The students in the faculty council now want to know exactly according to which criteria this will be done, but the board is not giving away all the details.