The outgoing Cabinet has set aside more than 8.5 billion euros to help education get through the coronavirus crisis as well as can be expected. A widely debated topic is the ‘coronavirus compensation’ for students. Current students will only need to pay 50 percent of their tuition fees next year, while students graduating this year will receive a refund equal to three months’ tuition.

The right balance

But at the research universities, only Master’s students are eligible for the last measure. In a debate earlier today, this led education spokespersons to ask what university Bachelor’s students graduating this year can expect who will not be doing a Master’s next year. Will they get nothing at all, despite the billions of euros that have been set aside?

Minister Van Engelshoven replied that she had already had this discussion before. According to her, it was a matter of striking the right balance between accommodating as many people as possible on the one hand, and making sure everything remains feasible on the other. “The vast majority of students graduate with a Master’s degree”, she said. “That’s why we see the Master’s degree as the end point.”

Frank Futselaar, MP for the SP, considered this to be rather harsh, particularly as the university Bachelor’s degree was designed as a stand-alone course. He understands that everything must be feasible for the Education Executive Agency (DUO) to deliver. “But saying that the current measures ‘cover most people’ is not an argument. We don’t make laws for most people, we make laws for everyone.”

Options

VVD MP Dennis Wiersma also shared his thoughts on the matter. Why not allow students themselves to choose between a discount for the next academic year or retroactively for this year, he asked. This also saves you having to find out exactly who all those university Bachelor’s students are.

Wiersma’s suggestion was not met with a great deal of enthusiasm from the Minister. The executive organisations are already working at full capacity, she said. “We need to be aware that more than a million students make use of DUO’s services. Would it be possible to offer every single one of those students a menu of options to choose from? No, it wouldn’t.”

But Futselaar did not relent. He submitted a motion together with PvdA and PvdD. The Minister did not support the motion. “I also have a responsibility towards my executive body.”

Budget shortfall

Kirsten van den Hul (PvdA) wondered whether all the figures provided by the Minister were accurate. Was there not a budget shortfall of 82 million euros with the funding intended to extend the contracts of those 20,000 young researchers?

This resulted in a fierce discussion lasting several minutes, in which the Minister assured Van den Hul several times that she had consulted the field extensively about the funding, including institutions such as KNAW, the Dutch Research Council and The Young Academy. “They were more than pleasantly surprised by the amount of funding.”

Van den Hul assured the Minister that she did not want to nitpick, but she did not obtain the answer she was looking for. In the end, she filed a motion.

Campaign

The debate was actually only supposed to be about the National Education Programme, but during the nearly six-hour-long meeting, the education spokespersons were also in a campaign mode from time to time. They shared highlights from their election programmes and pointed out motions from their parties that had undoubtedly contributed to this great, comprehensive support package.

Lisa Westerveld (GroenLinks) and Paul van Meenen (D66) interjected several times to ask Wiersma if the VVD really would invest in education after the elections. Wiersma replied that his colleagues would have to wait until the financial projections of the election programmes had been presented, which will happen Monday next week.

Update February 26, 2021 | Two motions of the House of Representatives that push towards more face-to-face education were adopted last night