Politicians in The Hague feel that internationalisation has gone too far, they want fewer English-language study programmes and a greater focus on Dutch. There is a so-called Toets Anderstalig Onderwijs [Foreign Language Education Assessment] on the way, intended to assess programmes more strictly – to what extent is it necessary for this degree programme to be taught in English? Why can’t it be in Dutch? Explaining that to the minister would an enormous administrative exercise.
The fourteen universities don’t want to trust their fates to the lap of the gods and so decided to draft a ‘self governance plan’, a slate of measures that will see about two thousand fewer international bachelor's students enrolling starting next year (compared to academic year 2022-2023), they wrote in a joint press release today. But there is one important condition: the Toets Anderstalig Onderwijs for existing programmes has to be scrapped. The question is whether Minister of Education Eppo Bruins could manage that. After all, what political clout does he have in a coalition that sees frequent in-fighting, where there is rampant distrust, and where everybody is focused primarily on their own constituents?
Randstad
Every university will contribute to the ‘self governance plan’, although it will hurt some more than others. For example, the universities in the Randstad, where whole English-language psychology programmes are set to be converted into Dutch. In Maastricht, the psychology bachelor remains bilingual, so with an English and a Dutch track. But what will happen is that the intake quota for both tracks will be adjusted to make the Dutch track more attractive.
Looking at the number of international students UM is set to ‘lose’ by implementing the measures, the Executive Board at Maastricht can count its blessings. The English-language track for Medicine disappears, but over the last few years, that attracted ‘only’ about forty students. Nor will the European Law School lose that many students with its new intake quota of 550.
UM President Rianne Letschert is well aware, “at the same time – and I cannot emphasise this enough – you have to consider that a large proportion of the international students at UM comes from the Euregion. If they start marking us down for that, then this university, this region will be incredibly vulnerable.” Furthermore, “Measures are needed in those areas with the greatest problems [such as housing], and not here, not in these border regions and contracting regions. That is reflected in our self governance plan, and is something we are very happy with.”
Language lessons
All the universities want to tackle the Dutch language proficiency of international students in an effort to improve the chances they will remain here. Students at UM can already follow a free course in Social Dutch, but at the moment, a working group is investigating what other, potentially less voluntary, options there are. Extra curricular language lessons and specific variants based on the curriculum, focused on jargon, for example. The UM already introduced a language policy for employees in 2018. Staff members are expected to be proficient in both English and Dutch. The expected levels are the fairly simple B1 level for activities outside of education, and the nearly native speaker proficiency of C1 level for those teaching.