Netherlands to privatize part-time studies
The Dutch government coalition is looking for ways to reducepublic debt through austerity measures and reforms of its publicservices. It has leaked that ministers consider privatizingpart-time higher education in order to save €300 million peryear.
Currently, students can follow part-time courses at publicuniversities and with private, commercial institutes. The publiclyfunded programs are subsidized by tax payers as tuition fees do notcover all costs.
A lion’s share of €250 million from these cuts will be borne byuniversities of applied sciences (UAS). According to data by theDutch UAS lobby HBO-Raad, they accommodate 60.000 part-timestudents. Universities have around 9,000 part-time students intheir academic courses.
Cuts to affect Life Long Learning
The idea to privatize part-time higher education was put forwardby the Dutch Council of Training and Learning (
Higher education experts fear that it is exactly these effortsin Life Long Learning which will be undermined by privatizingpart-time studies. Thom de Graaf, Chairman of the HBO-Raad,commented that he found the government’s plans “devastating”.
Teaching and masters hard-hit
Data from Dutch HE indicate that it will be master students ofapplied sciences who will be especially hard-hit by the plans.Part-time courses are very popular among them as 9.502 out of atotal 12.262 (77%) opt for this study mode. Another group whichwill be affected is teachers. From the 60.000 students that studypart-time at UAS institutes 20.457 are following teachingprograms.
This is of great concern to the Dutch education sector. TheNetherlands is already facing a shortage of highly qualifiedteachers in many subjects due to a rapidly increasing aging of thepopulation and the educational workforce in particular. Thisshortage will worsen further within the next 5 to 10 years.Upgrading via part-time HE-courses was seen as a major instrumentto strengthen the teaching profession and the new government plansmight challenge these efforts.
