Minister Rianne Letschert wants to restore ‘calm and stability’

The new minister of Education, Rianne Letschert, has an additional 1.5 billion euros to spend and wants to use it to restore ‘stability and calm’. “Of course, you never know how long I’ll stay in office.”

Rianne Letschert has now been Minister of Education for five weeks on behalf of D66 in a minority cabinet with CDA and VVD, which she also helped to form. She was the informateur who guided the negotiations.

Education will receive an extra 1.5 billion euros. “That is good news”, she says in Utrecht, where she is presenting the Lecturer of the Year award. “It allows us to reverse a large part of the cuts and also make new investments.”

So she is a minister with money, as she puts it, although she still has to negotiate how it will be spent. The coalition does not have a majority, so whatever her plans may be, support from the House of Representatives (and then the Senate) is not guaranteed.

A minister with money. Is that a relief?

“Absolutely! If you look at what the cuts have done within education and research… I see a lot of enthusiasm in vocational education, universities of applied sciences and research universities to work together on how to spend that money well.”

She says she wants to bring stability and calm. “In recent government terms there have been many changes, which have also led to constant shifts in policy and strategy. And of course, you never know how long I’ll stay in office, but I hope four years. That’s what we’re aiming for.”

One of the major issues in higher education is student stress. What can politics do to reduce it?

“We are going to increase the basic grant for students living away from home, which should bring some relief. Financial stress does not help your mental wellbeing.”

That amounts to a few tens of euros per month, right?

“Yes, but for a student that is quite a substantial amount. It is approaching fifty euros, so I’m not sure if that’s just ‘a few tens’.”

And beyond that?

“It is also important that universities continue to invest in all kinds of programmes related to student wellbeing. These came under pressure due to the cuts, because funding tends to go first to education and research themselves. The additional resources from this cabinet give education just a bit more room to continue programmes around social safety and mental wellbeing.”

First-year students also experience stress from the binding study advice. New research raises major questions about its usefulness. Will you adjust the rules?

“Ultimately, it is up to the educational institutions themselves to see what they can do to support student success, but I will of course read the research carefully with the question: what exactly does the binding study advice do, and does this research require a new discussion within the sector?”

But the research has not come out of nowhere, and your predecessors were keen to change it. Is it not on your agenda?

“The topic is not in the coalition agreement, so if I were to act on it, that would require discussions with the coalition and of course also with the House of Representatives. But I am particularly curious how the sector itself views such research. Is the binding study advice the right way to guide students and help them develop? That responsibility lies there. It is not solely up to politics.”

How was that consideration handled in Maastricht when you were a board member there?

“That varied by programme and discipline, and sometimes also by the dean who had final responsibility. But I am no longer a university administrator.”

The cuts to universities and universities of applied sciences are not only the result of measures by the previous cabinet, but also due to the decline in student numbers. Fewer students have also been coming from abroad. The new cabinet wants to allow more room again for English-taught education.

Will you attract international students to the Netherlands again?

“‘Attracting’ sounds very instrumental, but this cabinet at least wants to look at a ‘targeted talent strategy’. We want to set out a positive agenda while also addressing the challenges that universities and universities of applied sciences face in certain cities. Institutions want to be able to take control themselves. I will be discussing this with them.”

If you rely on ‘self-direction’ in higher education, what is the role of politics? What course are you setting as minister?

“I cannot share that yet. But I am happy to place trust in the institutions. For years, they have asked for certain measures from politics so they could steer internationalisation properly. For example, they wanted to be able to introduce an intake restriction on English-taught tracks within programmes. That option is now included in the law, so they can start using that steering mechanism.”

Trust alone cannot solve everything, can it? Take the workload among lecturers and researchers. If administrators could solve that, they would have done so already, right?

“With that workload, you should not overlook the effects of the cuts. And the severe crisis of the coronavirus pandemic has also had a real impact on those institutions. I think they have come through that very well. Now comes a period of hopefully four years with a stable cabinet that wants to invest additional funds in the sector to create a degree of calm and stability. That is also with the aim of addressing that workload.”

D66 actually wanted much more funding, didn’t it?

“Always!”

Is that 1.5 billion enough to tackle the problems?

“You have to be realistic. If you look at the challenges this country faces and what we ask, for example, of healthcare and social security, then I am simply very pleased that within this coalition we have secured 1.5 billion in funding for education. That is a very positive signal. And yes, you can say: it is not enough. But also look at society as a whole, at the reforms in healthcare and social security. Then I think we in education can be very satisfied.”