Universities recognise each other’s training for lecturers

Now that Dutch universities mutually recognise each other’s ‘senior teaching qualifications’, it’s easier for experienced lecturers to find a job at another university. Previously, they had to re-obtain that qualification after transferring.

Universities should not revolve solely around academic research, the new generation of university administrators believes. Other tasks, such as teaching, are also important.

Teaching should therefore not be a burden for academics, but a serious activity through which you can build a career just as well as through research. Universities are, at least on paper, paying more attention to teaching than they used to.

Among other things, they have introduced the basic teaching qualification: the BKO. Through this, they train lecturers, assistant professors, associate professors and professors in teaching, so that they can avoid beginner’s mistakes.

Nine universities

Nine universities now also offer training leading to a ‘senior teaching qualification’, or SKO, for experienced lecturers. The other universities are expected to introduce such an SKO in the near future. They have now agreed to recognise these SKOs mutually, as previously happened with the BKO.

Lecturers are eligible for an SKO programme if they have worked at a university for several years and show the ambition to improve teaching. They must have an eye for new developments in their field. They must also pay attention to technological changes and the diversity of student groups.

Such an SKO programme, with meetings and assignments, can take a year. If a senior lecturer then finds a job at another university, he or she might otherwise have had to complete such training again. Thanks to the mutual recognition, this is no longer necessary.

Accountability

The rectors of the fourteen universities also have a practical reason to make good agreements about the SKO. It enables them to demonstrate, during the government’s review of degree programmes (accreditation by the NVAO), that they provide further training for their lecturers. They themselves speak of ‘objective accountability’.

The current universities with an SKO track are Utrecht University, Leiden University, Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam, the University of Groningen, Tilburg University, Radboud University, Erasmus University, the University of Twente and the University of Amsterdam.

Other universities often offer further training that is similar, but it is not yet called an SKO or takes a different form.

No register

There is no national register of the number of lecturers with an SKO, says a spokesperson for the universities’ association UNL, but it is estimated to be around two to three thousand.

In Utrecht, according to the annual report, 30 per cent of lecturers have an SKO, but other universities appear to be less advanced – if they offer an SKO at all. At Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam, around fifty lecturers obtain this qualification each year. Last year, Leiden awarded its hundredth SKO.