Rules about English lectures at Dutch universities could soon become even stricter

The new rules that are supposed to ensure that English is used less often as the language of instruction at research and applied science university courses in the Netherlands could become stricter, said Education Minister Eppo Bruins on Tuesday. The minister is pressing forward with a bill first introduced by his predecessor, Robbert Dijkgraaf, but Bruins said he wants to adjust the underlying regulations to prevent too many courses from being exempted from these rules.

The law is known as the Wet internationalisering in balans, or the Balanced Internationalization Act. The Cabinet wants the law to regulate that a maximum of one-third of the courses taken for credit in bachelor’s programmes be offered in a language other than Dutch.

While the minister has said he wants the law to improve Dutch language skills while countering what he sees as the anglicisation of education, he also wants to cut down on the number of foreign students enrolled in higher education in the Netherlands. “The large influx puts pressure on student housing, causes overcrowded lecture halls and high pressure on lecturers,” he explained.

The association of applied sciences universities, Vereniging Hogescholen, denounced the ministers plan to further limit the number of English-language courses. The Cabinet is “giving the false impression that Dutch in higher professional education is under pressure,” the organization stated.

It fears that the measures will have a negative impact on courses that the Netherlands desperately needs. About 92 percent of the courses at applied sciences universities are offered in Dutch, the association said. “Dutch is already the norm in higher professional education,” said Vereniging Hogescholen Chair Maurice Limmen in a statement. The organization hopes that the existing English-language courses can be retained.

Both research and applied sciences universities may only deviate from the standard under exceptional cases, should the measure pass a vote in both houses of Parliament. One example is if it is important for the labor market that a course is offered in English.

“However, I want to ensure that the exception does not become the rule again,” Bruins wrote in a letter to the Tweede Kamer, the lower house of Parliament. That is why he wants to formulate these exceptional cases more strictly, he said.

For example, only a small number of programs may be granted an exceptional position because they have a unique position internationally. Moreover, an exception is not automatically granted if programs are offered in regions where people are leaving, or training for subjects in sectors with a workforce shortage.

But applied sciences universities have already limited the influx of foreign students to 8 percent of the total number of students, Limmen argued. “In addition, universities of applied sciences have made binding agreements to keep this the same in the future,” Vereniging Hogescholen said.

The coalition parties agreed in their first governance plan to eventually cut 293 million euros per year from higher education budgets by reducing the number of international students. The measures in the aforementioned law are “not sufficient” to achieve this target, Bruins claimed. He therefore expects “critical choices” from research and applied sciences universities, and he wants to make firm agreements about this.

Educational institutions will soon have a new method to reduce the number of international students. Until recently, it was only possible to admit a maximum number of students to the English-language variant of a course of study if that same maximum applied to the Dutch-language variant. Starting next year, universities will be able to set a fixed enrolment figure for English-language courses independently of the Dutch offering.