Only two hundred first-year students to study Dutch

Tekst Hoger Onderwijs Persbureau (HOP) - 2 oktober 2020 - 2 Minuten om te lezen

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Things are still not going well with the university courses in Dutch language and culture. From 2010 to 2019, the intake for the bachelor's degree dropped by 60 percent, Minister Van Engelshoven wrote this week in response to parliamentary questions from GroenLinks and CDA.

Tour

A tour shows that things are not getting any better this new academic year. Preliminary counts of the study programs show that together they only welcomed 200 first-years. Even the bachelor's degree at the University of Amsterdam (UvA) - the largest in 2010 with 178 first-years - has only just under 40 left this year. VU University closed its education at the beginning of 2019. The UvA has not benefited from this.

Source: VSNU and universities' own figures.

“It's even worse than it looks,” says Groningen professor Mathijs Sanders. "Due to the corona crisis, the entire higher education sector has more students this year, but Dutch studies are not seeing much of that."

More attractive

In her answer to the House of Representatives, Minister Van Engelshoven repeats that she has made a hundred thousand euros available with which the language courses - not just Dutch - can come up with plans together to make their education more attractive. She also believes that institutions should invest in language training themselves, for example from the 17,7 million euros that the minister annually makes available for the Sustainable Humanities sector plan.

In the longer term, Engelshoven expects Dutch Studies to benefit from its plan to make the funding of colleges and universities less dependent on student numbers. “A relatively larger proportion of fixed funding offers institutions the opportunity to do more for smaller and / or vulnerable programs, such as Dutch,” she writes.

No closure

But will the five Dutch courses survive until then? Marc van Oostendorp, professor of Dutch at Radboud University Nijmegen and member of the Council for Dutch Studies, does not think that any of the programs will be threatened with closure this year. "It is true that some professors are retiring, and they are sometimes not followed up."

Academically trained teachers can help to make the Dutch school subject attractive again

The minister does acknowledge the problems, but, according to Van Oostendorp, is not contributing sufficiently to the solution. The self-interest of the programs is of secondary importance to him. “For society it is very important that more students come to Dutch, because academically trained teachers are desperately needed. They can help to make Dutch school subject attractive again and to promote reading skills. The plans to adjust the curriculum are ready, but the teachers must be able to implement them. ”

Self-hatred

Van Oostendorp's husband is Italian and professor of linguistics in Utrecht. “She is always amazed at how the study of Dutch is put aside here. In Italy, Italian is a separate faculty. ” Is it self hate? “That is a bit too active for me. It's more of a lack of interest. Even worse indeed. ”

Also read: 'The intake at teacher training in Dutch is dwindling'