{"id":140623,"date":"2022-05-25T12:48:12","date_gmt":"2022-05-25T10:48:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.erasmusmagazine.nl\/en\/?p=140623"},"modified":"2025-12-19T11:26:18","modified_gmt":"2025-12-19T10:26:18","slug":"advisory-councils-ensure-hopeful-future-for-young-people","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.erasmusmagazine.nl\/en\/2022\/05\/25\/advisory-councils-ensure-hopeful-future-for-young-people\/","title":{"rendered":"Advisory councils: ensure ‘hopeful future’ for young people"},"content":{"rendered":"

Young people are worried about education, housing, climate and pensions. The cabinet must work to offer them a hopeful future, warn advisory councils.<\/p>\n

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Students protested the meagre compensation for the student loan system in February.<\/span><\/p>

\n\t\n\n<\/svg>\n<\/span>\n\tImage by:<\/span>\n\n\t\t\t\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\tJosephine Hartmann<\/a>\t\t\t\t\t<\/span>\n\t<\/p>\n<\/figcaption><\/figure>

Fourteen advisory councils of the government and parliament, including the Social and Economic Council of the Netherlands, handed over an \u2018inspiration bundle of articles<\/a>\u2018 to the cabinet. By doing so, they want to inspire policy makers and show how they can cooperate more with young people. This is urgently needed, they write<\/a>, because young people are very concerned about the future.<\/p>\n

Bottlenecks in higher education are also mentioned. \u201cEducation, with its focus on grades, diplomas and achievements, has become a stressful place for young people. They have to run faster and faster to stay in the same position. That really has to change\u201d, says the booklet.<\/p>\n

Test culture and pressure to make choices<\/h2>

According to the councils, the existing \u2018test culture\u2019 does more harm than good. High grades are seen as very important, because many master\u2019s degrees and employers use them as the basis for their selection. \u201cThe result is that students learn to get a high grade (read: memorise facts) and not to really understand the material.\u201d<\/p>\n

Young people are also said to suffer from the pressure they experience when choosing the right study. Certainly because switching courses can easily cost a student a few thousand euros extra in student debt.<\/p>\n

The basic grant<\/a> will return in 2023, but \u2018that is not the end of the matter\u2019, because young people still earn little, given \u2018the excessive rent prices and the strong inflation\u2019. As a result, the future salary will be increasingly central to choosing a course of study instead of a student\u2019s intrinsic motivation, the advisory councils warn the cabinet.<\/p>\n\n\t

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