{"id":92914,"date":"2018-12-12T12:59:10","date_gmt":"2018-12-12T11:59:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.erasmusmagazine.nl\/en\/?p=92914"},"modified":"2025-12-19T11:23:10","modified_gmt":"2025-12-19T10:23:10","slug":"poor-service-at-duo-more-patience-required","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.erasmusmagazine.nl\/en\/2018\/12\/12\/poor-service-at-duo-more-patience-required\/","title":{"rendered":"Poor service at DUO: more patience required"},"content":{"rendered":"

Sometimes students calling the Education Executive Agency are put in a queue for half an hour or even an hour before anyone answers the phone. The National Ombudsman, Reinier van Zutphen, believes this is unacceptable. <\/span><\/p>\n

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This autumn, he sent a letter to the Minister for Education, Ingrid van Engelshoven. And when he was not satisfied with her reply<\/a> he sent her a, second letter<\/a>. \u201cIn my opinion, your department\u2019s limited budget does not constitute a valid reason for the agency\u2019s inability to help students and former students with urgent problems,\u201d he wrote.<\/span><\/p>\n

DUO\u2019s problems may well become a bit of a headache for the Minister, because by now, nearly all Dutch political parties have got involved in the discussion<\/a> , asking why the service provided to students is so subpar. The parties forming the current government are not happy with it, either.<\/span><\/p>\n

Sorry<\/h2>

\u201cI\u2019m sorry that students have to wait so long before being served,\u201d the Minister wrote to the Lower House. However, apologies are all she has on offer. While she agrees that the customer service provided to students is subpar, she claims it is \u201cquite the challenge in itself\u201d to make sure the level of service does not actually deteriorate.<\/span><\/p>\n

You see, DUO is a little strapped for cash. Van Engelshoven said last month<\/a> that the executive agency had suffered some setbacks, in the form of difficulties managing and maintaining its ICT. These difficulties were partially due to a switch to a new student finance management system (which, incidentally, ended up being twice as expensive<\/a> as budgeted).<\/span><\/p>\n

According to DUO spokesperson Tea Jonkman, the new system works well, \u201cbut the other systems connected to it are older and they had to be made to work with the new system. So we ran into some issues no one had predicted.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

Victim<\/h2>

Moreover, DUO is to some extent a victim of its own success. In the new system, students who edit their information or arrangements can see the changes straight away, but that does not stop them from making a phone call, anyway. \u201cWe get a lot of calls asking us to confirm things,\u201d says Jonkman. \u201cThey\u2019ll say: \u2018I edited such-and-such information. Can you see those changes?\u2019 And we\u2019ll say, \u2018Yes, we can.\u2019 Some people just prefer calling to reading, even when the information is presented to them in a very clear and easy-to-understand way.\u201d
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She hopes there will be fewer such phone calls in the future, once students have got used to the new system. \u201cOf course we don\u2019t want to keep our callers in a queue. We\u2019d rather call people ourselves, to prevent all sorts of issues. We\u2019d like to get some additional funding for that.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

However, that is not likely to happen any time soon, as the Minister has informed the Ombudsman. The Minister wrote in her reply to the Ombudsman\u2019s second letter that she did not want to give off the impression that she thinks it is acceptable for callers to be kept in a queue, but that she was forced to make certain choices. \u201cWhat with the financial resources I was given, I had to weigh what is desirable against what is feasible.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

Spring<\/h2>

Van Engelshoven is currently having the severity of the problems assessed. She will know more on the subject next spring and has promised both the Lower House and the Ombudsman that she will get back to them then.
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De redactie<\/h2>\n\t\t\n\t\t
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