Minister: MBO student will soon be 'student'
In two years' time, MBO students will be officially students, just like their peers at universities and colleges. They are currently still formally called 'participants', but they want to get rid of that.
MBO students do not think it is fair that they are not seen as students. Partly because they do not always have the same benefits as their peers at higher vocational education or university, such as student discounts and student membership in sports clubs.
Minister Van Engelshoven of Education also finds the distinction strange. 'Young people in MBO are just as much students as all the others. By now also changing the term participant into the word student in the law, we are doing justice to everyone', writes the minister in a press release.
The amendment will enter into force in two years. Anyone who starts an MBO program in September 2020 is officially a student by law.
