Minister wants institutions to better explain selection procedures

Education minister Eppo Bruins is going to require higher education institutions to explain their admissions procedures. The rationale behind selection criteria is often unclear, even though they can undermine equality of opportunity.

Some degree programmes admit only a limited number of students. Well-known examples include medicine, architecture and psychology at research universities, and midwifery, physiotherapy and applied psychology at universities of applied sciences.

Time and again, the selection procedures for these programmes have been shown to lead to inequality of opportunity: some groups of students are admitted at lower rates than others. One determining factor is whether or not their parents can afford selection training.

Does selection actually work? The Inspectorate of Education found that many programmes lacked a structured approach and were unable to clearly explain their admissions process.

Explanation lacking

In a letter to the House of Representatives, Bruins argues that institutions should ‘obviously’ be able to properly substantiate their selection procedures and regularly check for biases. “In practice, however, this explanation of the criteria and tools used is often still lacking.”

This is why he’s going to make it a legal requirement for all higher education programmes to explain the reasoning behind their admissions procedures. This explanation also has to be made publicly available so that participation bodies can adequately fulfil their advisory role.

Lottery

Before 2000, programmes were only allowed to cap enrolment by allocating places through a lottery system. After that, they were able to select half of their incoming students based on a variety of self-imposed criteria: besides GPA, things like motivation and personality also came into play. The lottery system was abolished altogether in 2017 due to a perceived lack of fairness.

As it turns out, though, selection doesn’t produce fair outcomes either, which is why lotteries are now making a tentative comeback. For the 2025-2026 academic year, programmes will once again be allowed to admit students on the basis of random selection.

“In the 2025-2026 academic year, 26 programmes will use a lottery system”, writes Bruins. This includes the medical programme at the University of Groningen.

No preferential treatment

Bruins does not want certain groups to receive preferential treatment based on their background, for instance to make it easier for people from migrant backgrounds to be admitted to medical programmes. This is sometimes referred to as positive discrimination, affirmative action or corrective selection.