Higher education is under pressure and the scientific reputation of the Netherlands is at stake. That’s what professors, students and employees of Dutch universities say. They are ringing the alarm today because they think there is too little time and money for good education.
The main problem is that money received by universities is disproportionate to the increase in the number of students. According to the Association of Universities (VSNU), government funding per student has been declining for years. For example, the contribution per student in 2002 was approximately 20,000 euros, last year it was 15,100 euros.
“Every year a bit of the cheese slicer goes over it,” says Casper Albers, professor of applied statistics and data visualization at the University of Groningen in the Netherlands. NOS Radio 1 News. “You have less time to prepare your lectures and your workgroups are fuller; where there used to be fifteen students per group, there are now more than twenty.
According to Albers, many colleagues are quitting: “Quite a lot of PhD students say they would have liked to continue as a researcher in science, but they think the workload and job insecurity are too great.” The quality of scientific research in the Netherlands is also at stake, says Albers. “We see that other countries, such as Germany and Scandinavian countries, are starting to catch up on us.”
Actions in The Hague
With the ‘Normal Academic Level’ campaign, the universities are calling on the new cabinet to invest 1.1 billion euros on a structural basis. “Above all, this means that more teachers must be appointed. There are many more students than twenty years ago. So it takes a lot more work to provide them with good education,” says Albers.
Lecturers will go to The Hague this afternoon to present an information package to MPs together with employers, trade unions and student unions. Actions are also being launched in student cities, within the corona measures.
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