Universities want to be able to freeze international admissions

Universities are calling for broader authorities when it comes to selecting international students. This would allow the universities to manage the increased intake of new students more effectively.

Even more international students are welcome to study in the Netherlands than have done so up to now, write the research universities and universities of applied sciences in their Internationalisation Agenda, which was presented on Monday. But in return, the institutions would like to have a higher budget – and more options to choose who is admitted.

The Association of Universities in the Netherlands (VSNU) and The Netherlands Association of Universities of Applied Sciences (Vereniging Hogescholen, VH) treat the growing influx of foreign students as an inevitable development. One in three assistant professors is international, as are half of all doctoral candidates in the Netherlands. Over the past five years, the number of international bachelor and master students has increased from 31,000 to 48,000.

For the most part, the educational institutions see this as a beneficial trend: it improves the curricula and prepares students for an international career. Moreover, international students can help overcome labour shortages caused by population ageing. But to safeguard the quality of the provided education, the universities would like to have more money for their programmes, and more selection opportunities.

Freeze

For example, the institutions want the ability to intervene when too many international students enrol in a specific programme or when the share of native Dutch students threatens to become too small. To guarantee diversity in the ‘international classroom’, they would like the option of selecting candidates based on their nationality.

In addition, the universities are in favour of offering both a Dutch-language and an English-language variant for the degree programmes. This ensures that Dutch students always have access to a programme (via its Dutch-language track) while the institution can choose to impose an admissions freeze for its English-language counterpart. Right now universities are only allowed to set an intake restriction for a degree programme in its entirety. Enabling a separate intake restriction for the English-language variant ensures that in the years ahead, Dutch higher education students can continue to enrol in their chosen programme – even when it is swamped by international applications.

Higher tuition fees

In their Internationalisation Agenda, VSNU and VH also argue for setting (even) higher tuition fees for students from outside Europe and for realising sufficient student housing to accommodate this intake. Furthermore, the associations want to make joint agreements about the working language used within the education programmes to ensure that universities continue to offer enough Dutch-language options. Where required, lecturers also need to complete further education so that English language proficiency among the academic staff is at least at the C1 level.

The Internationalisation Agenda published by the institutions of higher education is mainly intended as a discussion item and as input for the Netherlands’s Education Minister Ingrid van Engelshoven. Next month Van Engelshoven will send a letter to the House of Representatives in which she sets out her perspective on internationalisation and English-language education.

Walter Sobchak May 17, 2018 12:35 PM

If the universities are private – its within their rights to discriminate as much as they wish. Public universities however cant have such a privilege, because um… they are public – so its up to the government to determine policy for all of them. As for internationalization and multiculturalism – they are neither good or bad, as much as western governments try to push either of that agenda. Its a phenomenon created by the existence of open borders – its logic that if borders are open, people will come over to see whats going on. Given that influx – especially into rich western countries – it is important to devise strategies to deal with these newcomers, they must integrate and accept the rules of the land, however they should also be given the tools to work, live and prosper whilst doing so. Same applies to universities – i have seen some awful examples where courses had to be dumbed down in terms of statistics and mathematics just because the standards in foreign lands are lower – this is at the disadvantage of everyone.Literally the cause of higher education is weakened by attempting to satisfy some sort of internationalization political agenda.In summary, this is not a call of university admittance sovereignty – admittances should be monitored and limited or expanded by the government on the basis of the quality of the most important output – EDUCATION.