{"id":146570,"date":"2022-11-15T14:52:05","date_gmt":"2022-11-15T13:52:05","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.erasmusmagazine.nl\/en\/?p=146570"},"modified":"2025-12-19T11:26:30","modified_gmt":"2025-12-19T10:26:30","slug":"caribbean-students-to-get-bsn-number-more-quickly","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.erasmusmagazine.nl\/en\/2022\/11\/15\/caribbean-students-to-get-bsn-number-more-quickly\/","title":{"rendered":"Caribbean students to get BSN number more quickly"},"content":{"rendered":"

Education Minister Robbert Dijkgraaf is going to make things easier for Caribbean students who come to the Dutch mainland to study. On Thursday he announced<\/a> that they can get a BSN number via the Education Executive Agency before they leave for the Netherlands.<\/p>

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Municipal counter<\/h2>

This enables them to register in the Dutch municipal database in their Caribbean place of residence. Then, they can also get a new Dutch passport already containing the BSN.<\/p>\n

Previously they could get their BSN number and passport only at a municipal counter in the Netherlands. This led to a delay in the application for student financing and a student public transport card. They were also unable to open a bank account or take out insurance.<\/p>\n

Vulnerable students<\/h2>

With this decision, Dijkgraaf wants to do something for the vulnerable Caribbean students. It emerged<\/a> from a report by the ombudsman in 2020 that they fall behind in their studies more often and drop out earlier than others. Additionally, many of them start with a language deficiency and sometimes get into financial problems.<\/p>\n

Minister Dijkgraaf had previously said that he wants to institute a new grant programme for the Dutch Caribbean area, similar to an Erasmus scholarship. The current status of that plan is not known.<\/p>\n\n\t

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