Minister lets Dutch Studies save itself
The study of Dutch Studies is deflating. The minister gives the programs a boost, but they have to pull themselves out of the morass with sector plans, updated curricula and an information campaign.
Picture: Type tank
The study of Dutch Studies has attracted few students for years. The bachelor's program has even been closed at the Vrije Universiteit. Make sure that the five remaining study programs are preserved, the KNAW science association advised in an alarming report last year.
The latter is 'beyond dispute' for Minister Van Engelshoven, she writes to the Lower House. She just keeps her hand on the cut for a while. Above all, the study programs must find their way up themselves.
The minister is keeping his hand on his hair for a while
However, the language courses (not just Neerlandistiek) will receive a hundred thousand euros to come up with good plans together to make their courses more attractive. With that money they can 'start up a national project, for example', according to the minister, who especially wants to encourage the Dutch, Frisian, English, French and German courses. Maybe they can collaborate with the popular culture studies.
Instagram poem
She had previously earmarked a hundred thousand euros for a study choice campaign for the Dutch Studies programs and the Dutch teacher training programs. Some of that money now goes to a platform that challenges students to write creatively: write a rap text, an Instagram poem or a dialogue between two animals.
But the KNAW had also asked for money 'against the disastrous financial consequences of an unexpected further drop in the intake, for a period until the other measures have taken effect'. In other words: strengthen the basis from which the programs can reinvent themselves. Students of the education master's programs in Neerlandistiek should also receive a subsidy of three thousand euros towards their study costs. That money is not coming.
The minister calls on the language faculties to work on how they can become attractive to students again
The minister himself had raised expectations in an interview with the HOP. She wanted to protect small unique courses such as Dutch Studies. 'Such courses should not have to fight every day for their existence.' That is precisely why she wants to make the financing of higher education less dependent on student numbers.
Far away
But that change in financing is still a long way off. The minister is now calling on the language faculties to work on a sector plan. They can decide for themselves how they can become attractive to students again.
According to the KNAW, the Dutch school subject also had to get more sjeu. That is being worked on, the minister writes. The intention is, among other things, to make school subject and study more closely matched.
