Since last year, the University of Maastricht has been actively seeking students in Belgium and Germany for three new programmes, reported university medium Observant in early March.
Is this compatible with the cabinet’s goal of attracting fewer internationals to the Netherlands? The NSC’s House of Representatives faction, the minister’s party, questioned whether he should engage in discussions with Maastricht to hold the administration ‘accountable’.
Small-scale
However, Bruins sees no reason to do so. Inquiries at the university reveal that the recruitment was actually a form of ‘small-scale information provision in the region around Maastricht’ (specifically in the so-called Maas-Rhine Euregio) and moreover, it was only aimed at programmes in sectors with shortages.
In 2022, Bruins’ predecessor Robbert Dijkgraaf agreed in a governance agreement that universities would cease large-scale recruitment activities. They were only allowed to bring in ‘very limited’ students from abroad for programmes in the sectors of healthcare, science, technology, engineering, mathematics and education.
In an interview with Observant, president Rianne Letschert stated that she no longer feels bound by this governance agreement. The government is not adhering to it with its cuts, Letschert reasoned in Observant: “For us, the agreement no longer exists.”
According to agreement
However, in practice, the university is adhering to the agreement, minister Bruins notes. The recruitment of students in Maastricht was, according to him, aimed at the programmes of brain science and regenerative medicine and technology – two technical healthcare programmes, where there is, also according to Bruins, a significant demand in the job market.
Regarding the third new programme Sustainable Bioscience, Bruins does make a comment: it does not yet have accreditation, he writes, so recruitment for it is not permitted. However, Bruins claims that this third programme was ‘erroneously’ mentioned in the article by Observant. “The university has assured me that it has not undertaken recruitment activities aimed at this programme.”
