{"id":125032,"date":"2021-04-02T12:25:35","date_gmt":"2021-04-02T10:25:35","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.erasmusmagazine.nl\/en\/?p=125032"},"modified":"2025-12-19T11:25:31","modified_gmt":"2025-12-19T10:25:31","slug":"a-student-cabinet-where-did-that-come-from","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.erasmusmagazine.nl\/en\/2021\/04\/02\/a-student-cabinet-where-did-that-come-from\/","title":{"rendered":"A student cabinet? Where did that come from?"},"content":{"rendered":"

That\u2019s right, these student ministers<\/a> have no formal connection to political parties, nor are they representatives of student unions or university governance councils. However, they have struck their own coalition agreement.<\/p>\n

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The fourteen universities under umbrella organisation VSNU have each appointed a student representative to fulfil a ministerial post. The Minister of Agriculture studies at Wageningen University & Research, and the Minister of New Delta Works is from Delft.<\/p>\n

Peace and Innovation<\/h2>

This formation of this alternative cabinet has resulted in a series of brand-new ministerial posts, including New Democracy, Innovation, Peace and Healthy Living. Each minister has written a short and concise proposal explaining how they see the future: where should we be heading? All these documents have footnotes referencing scientific articles.<\/p>\n

The oldest minister in the student cabinet is the 40-year-old student Walter Loog of the Open University; he has taken responsibility for \u2018life-long learning\u2019 and thinks the government should treat all students equally, whether they are enrolled in fulltime or part-time degree programmes.<\/p>\n

The Prime Minister is from Twente University. His name is Timon Metz, and he\u2019s doing a Master\u2019s in Industrial Engineering & Management. He was chosen<\/a> from 25 candidates. Not by students, but by someone in the Department of Marketing and Communication, plus a few others.<\/p>\n

Fifty years from now<\/h2>\n\t
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\n\t\t\u2018What we do is translate scientific knowledge into policy for this country in twenty, thirty or fifty years\u2019\n\t<\/blockquote>\n\n\t<\/figure>\n\t\t<\/div>\n\t<\/div>\n

So who is this PM actually speaking for? \u201cHopefully I speak on behalf of science and the universities\u201d, Metz says. \u201cWe are not the voice of students! We are not of any political stripe. What we do is translate scientific knowledge into policy for this country in twenty, thirty or fifty years. It doesn\u2019t matter if it\u2019s left, right or diagonal.\u201d<\/p>\n

It\u2019s noticeable that education and research are approached somewhat functionally in the standpoints of these ministers. For example, the 21-year-old Minister of Innovation, Dirk van der Meer, is advocating rolling out \u201cchallenge based learning\u201d for higher education. This would allow students to work on innovations aimed at solving the problems facing society. Art and culture \u2013 to name a few \u2013 have not been given a role.<\/p>\n

This \u2018coalition agreement\u2019 doesn\u2019t cover everything, Metz admits. \u201cWe also don\u2019t have a Ministry of Finance. We want to stay away from real politics \u2013 well, obviously, you can\u2019t completely. But we want to look at the long term from a purely scientific perspective.\u201d<\/p>\n

Tongue-in-cheek<\/h2>

Briefly put, a student cabinet that doesn\u2019t speak on behalf of students but on behalf of scientific knowledge. And one that doesn\u2019t want to be political, but is anyway. In a kind of parody of the traditional new government group shot, the ministers can be seen with red election ballot circles placed on their stomachs, but no one elected them.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe are doing all of this tongue-in-cheek\u201d, spokesperson Piet van Ierland said on behalf of the universities. \u201cWe are helping with the formation of the real government from the sidelines, but this is not a lobby for higher education and we are not creating a new political platform. Dutch universities have a lot of knowledge that is worth sharing. We want to challenge political leaders to look further afield: let others get involved in strategic thinking.\u201d<\/p>\n

The students were free to write whatever they wanted to, he said. The only pre-condition was that the student ministers had to look beyond their own opinions and back up their writing with references to scientific literature. \u201cNot populism, not your own opinion, but sound ideas based on really solid knowledge.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/strong>The student cabinet\u2019s coalition agreement was presented to outgoing Education Minister Ingrid van Engelshoven this afternoon at a special gathering.<\/p>\n\n\t

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De redactie<\/h2>\n\t\t\n\t\t
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