The decision is final, there won’t be any more bachelor’s degrees in English, and the focus will be on more bachelors in Dutch. But now, questions like whether bachelor’s programmes in Dutch improve the education quality and whether taxpayers still get their money’s worth arise. A lot of economists don’t think so. It will likely result in higher costs and a lower quality of education.
In an opinion piece in Dagblad van het Noorden, a group of professors from the Faculty of Economics and Business at the University of Groningen say they are not as happy as others when It comes to the government-pressured decision to change the spoken language at the university from English to Dutch.
The people who agreed are satisfied with this decision because this means universities won’t be attracting as many international students anymore, and conversing can be done again in Dutch. According to them, the taxpayer gets what they deserve; students who are educated from their taxes and adequately master the country’s language.
However, according to the economists, a lot could go wrong. Especially looking at the broader scope of what the goal of education is and should be.
Unclear consequence of language measures
The first issue they bring up is that the consequences of language measures are not clear enough, which the board of education also found. The idea is to give Dutch students the best quality of education. However, it turns out that especially at university level, the best bachelor’s programme is not necessarily a Dutch one. On the contrary, with the lack of qualified Dutch lecturers, it would even possibly be worse in quality.
The professors found that in their faculty, for two normal teaching positions, four out of 90 applicants were Dutch.
Specialist job
And that brings them to the second issue, that working at the university is a specialist job. There are not nearly enough Dutch academics available to fill the gaps of their international colleagues. A consequence of such issues is already visible in Dutch secondary education, hampered by lower quality, fewer school hours, and university students teaching instead of qualified teachers.
And they don’t expect a language course will help the international staff. Dutch is a difficult language and the language measure would make it unappealing to expats to come here and might entice the ones already here to leave.
Besides the gaps in job roles at the University that taint the quality, there will also be gaps in research experts in the Netherlands, which is intertwined with the promise of high-quality education.
Students’ opinions
The professors note that it is interesting that the students themselves haven’t been asked what language they prefer.
One of the professors here, however, did ask his Dutch economics students. They saw it as an unwanted development that could jeopardise their careers since their professions were so heavily reliant on English.
Inequality of opportunities
Lastly, the professors claim these changes will simply create more inequalities for Dutch people. While the idea is to limit the amount of people signing up for classes in English, many Dutch students prefer these classes anyway since they are often of a higher quality. If Dutch students find themselves locked out of these classes, it may make it harder for them to find a job or also go abroad.
The professors asked Dutch taxpayers: “Is this what you want? Higher costs and lesser education quality for your children and grandchildren?