New Education Minister calls fewer international students a "top priority"
Reducing “excessive internationalization” at Dutch universities and universities of applied sciences is a top priority for candidate Education Minister Eppo Bruins, he said in his hearing in the Tweede Kamer, the lower house of the Dutch parliament, on Thursday. The high number of international students puts “enormous pressure on the system, on lecturers, and on the national budget,” he said, according to NU.nl’s live blog on the hearings.
Bruins used to be a ChristenUnie parliamentarian. He will be Minister of Education, Culture, and Science for the NSC in the Schoof I Cabinet.
Outgoing Education Minister Robberd Dijkgraaf has already submitted a bill to limit the number of international students at Dutch higher education institutions. Among other things, the bill sets stricter requirements for offering courses in English and allows universities to limit the number of students they enroll for certain degrees.
Bruins said that Dijkgraaf’s Internationalization in Balance Act will become the “basis” of his plans. “But I will go through it with a dust comb. Because I also want to make sure it doesn’t break anything,” he said. For example, he wants to ensure that shortage sectors that need international students “are placed in a somewhat more flexible regime.”
The new Minister will definitely push through the part of the bill that limits English-language courses, he said. “Because Dutch as a language in education is one of the few buttons you can turn.” The majority of non-Dutch students in the Netherlands are from the European Union, and EU rules prescribe that they can’t be treated differently than local students.
According to the PVV, VVD, NSC, and BBB’s coalition agreement, the new government wants to save 293 million euros per year by making the Netherlands less attractive to international students. “I have to adhere to this framework,” Bruins said. After he takes office, he will look into other ways to limit the influx of international students.
