The fallen cabinet wanted to cut back on the number of foreign students in the Netherlands. For instance, by forcing universities and colleges to offer some English-taught programmes in Dutch from now on.
There has been ongoing political debate regarding the influx of international students and the anglicisation of higher education. The previous minister of education (Robbert Dijkgraaf from D66) laid the groundwork for a legislative proposal: balancing internationalisation. The current minister Eppo Bruins (NSC) has taken over.
Language test
And Bruins is thus allowed to continue, as the House of Representatives just agreed in a meeting of the education committee. The plans are not sensitive enough to be declared ‘controversial’. This means that the outgoing minister can work on it until the elections, and possibly even until the next cabinet is formed.
The most contentious part of the legislative proposal has already been removed: the language assessment for foreign-language programmes. Was the choice of their language of instruction sensible, or would it be better to teach in Dutch? However, under pressure from institutions in the region and thanks to a shift from coalition parties NSC and VVD, the language assessment is disappearing from the law.
Competition
The other elements of the law encounter little resistance. In the future, programmes may, for example, introduce an intake restriction for English-taught tracks, while Dutch-taught tracks remain open. This way, Dutch students do not have to compete with foreign students. Programmes will also have an emergency brake: if a sudden influx of students from outside Europe applies, they can close registrations.
Other legislative proposals and debates will also continue in the near future, the OCW committee of the House of Representatives decided. The PVV did aim to declare the proposal controversial to attract top American researchers to the Netherlands but did not receive enough support for that.
