Advisory council advocates stricter selection at the gate
Universities and colleges need to profile themselves more strongly. In order to attract the corresponding students, they must be given more opportunities to select at the gate, according to the Advisory Council for Science, Technology and Innovation.
Image: Front cover The system put on edge, AWTI
Dutch higher education and research is among the best in the world, but that threatens to change, writes the Advisory Council for Science, Technology and Innovation (AWTI) advice that is presented today to Minister Van Engelshoven.
Institutions hardly dare to distinguish themselves from the rest with their education and research. That has a lot to do with their funding. “They are rewarded when they grow in student numbers and when they pursue as many sources of research funding as possible. As a result, they increasingly resemble each other and do not cooperate sufficiently, ”says AWTI councilor Sjoukje Heimovaara.
Institutions hardly dare to distinguish themselves from the rest with their education and research
mismatch
In addition, colleges and universities are unable to get students in the right place. “There is a mismatch between training and the labor market”, says Uri Rosenthal, chairman of the AWTI. For example, there are too few graduates in sectors such as science and technology and institutions sometimes have difficulty training sufficient students due to a lack of capacity. On the other hand, studies such as language, culture, behavior and society produce too many people who cannot find work.
Universities and colleges must therefore choose a clear profile: what are they good at and what are their concrete plans? In order to attract the right students for this, the Bachelor's programs in particular must be able to select more, according to the advisory council. At the moment, this only happens for programs with a numerus fixus, for 'small-scale and intensive' studies and for Master's programmes.
Reward
Those who present themselves strongly should be rewarded for this. That is why the AWTI advocates 'profile funding': part of the direct funding (between 5 and 30 percent) must be linked to the realization of the chosen profile.
The advisory council wants to leave control of this to a central supervisory body that 'forms a buffer between politics and the autonomous institutions'. It is up to the minister to formulate a clear social assignment for higher education and to fine-tune it on a regular basis.
Suprised
The Association of Universities of Applied Sciences is surprised by this part of the advice. "The recommendations are based on centralized planning, which has been shown to not work." The VH will soon be working with the universities with proposals for the future of higher education.
The question is whether a political majority can be found for more selection at the gate. Parties have increasingly questioned this in recent years. They fear that it will lead to social inequality. Students are not automatically more positive about studies with a selective door policy. Small-scale still seems to be a better predictor of quality.
