{"id":138206,"date":"2022-03-24T15:49:08","date_gmt":"2022-03-24T14:49:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.erasmusmagazine.nl\/en\/?p=138206"},"modified":"2025-12-19T11:26:13","modified_gmt":"2025-12-19T10:26:13","slug":"work-pressure-for-academics-if-it-were-simple-we-would-have-solved-it-already","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.erasmusmagazine.nl\/en\/2022\/03\/24\/work-pressure-for-academics-if-it-were-simple-we-would-have-solved-it-already\/","title":{"rendered":"Work pressure for academics: ‘If it were simple, we would have solved it already’"},"content":{"rendered":"

Calls to improve the working conditions of academics are growing louder by the day. The coalition agreement has set aside additional funds for higher education, but these funds have not yet been allocated. What is Erasmus University doing right now to make concrete improvements in the working conditions of academics?<\/p>\n

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\n\t\n\n<\/svg>\n<\/span>\n\tImage by:<\/span>\n\n\t\t\t\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\tMigle Alonderyte<\/a>\t\t\t\t\t<\/span>\n\t<\/p>\n<\/figcaption><\/figure>

The last Well-being monitor survey sent to employees in December 2021 showed that things are better in general for employees. However, around 40 percent still say they are suffering from burnout complaints, and an EUR employee works five hours of overtime per week on average. These numbers aren\u2019t very reassuring.<\/strong><\/p>\n

Lieke Skidmore: \u201cOur vision is that the university must be a healthy working environment, and that means if 38 percent of employees have burnout complaints, that number is too high. This figure has dropped, so I think that\u2019s a positive development. What I see here is that we have spent a lot of time on this theme, especially with raising awareness among managers and supervisors to make them more alert to this problem, and we\u2019ve offered resources to deal with it.\u201d<\/p>\n

Ellen van Schoten: \u201cAnd what we\u2019re dealing with here is a number of systemic problems, for example in the funding of higher education in general and of Erasmus University in more specific terms. In a comparison with other universities, the student-lecturer ratio at EUR is highly unfavourable. That\u2019s why we have negative budgeting until 2023. We wouldn\u2019t be able to manage otherwise. We also communicated this point to Robbert Dijkgraaf<\/a>, the Minister of Education. We hope the 700 million set aside in the coalition agreement for higher education will remedy the situation.\u201d<\/p>\n

What is the university doing to resolve these systemic problems?<\/strong><\/p>\n

Van Schoten: \u201cWe\u2019re looking at the time spent on teaching. A comparison<\/a> carried out by The Young Academy shows that Dutch universities spend two months more on average on classroom instruction and examinations than other good universities in Europe. And out of all the Dutch universities, EUR has the highest number of weeks spent on classroom instruction. The Rector has established a working group to study whether the timetables could be harmonised. Giving fewer lectures means more time is available for preparation and recovery. Additionally, work pressure is being discussed at all organisational levels by directors, deans and all the supervisors and managers under them. That makes it an important topic.\u201d<\/p>\n\t

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