This emerges from an initial report commissioned by the Ministry of Education, Culture and Science. For the senior secondary vocational education and higher education sectors a total of 2.7 billion euros is available in the National Programme for Education (NPO). A large part of that sum has already been spent on aspects such as halving tuition fees and a one-year extension to the right to a student travel product.

The plans for the deployment of 600 million euros had to be made by the institutions themselves, in cooperation with the employee participation bodies. It now appears that in the next two years the institutions will use more than 40 percent to deal with study delays.

Tailored care

The universities are putting 36 percent of the budget, and the universities of applied sciences 27 percent, into improving student wellbeing; there will be more “tailored care” for students that have mental or personal problems. Fontys University of Applied Sciences, for example, is appointing a “wellbeing coach” at each of their institutions.

In the higher professional education sector almost a quarter of the budget will be spent on dealing with study delays in the teacher training programmes. The academic education sector is spending 10 percent on it and another 11 percent on better support and counselling for delays suffered by medical students who are doing internships.

Research delay

Researchers on temporary contracts who have suffered delays are being enabled to complete their research. Twice an amount of 81 million euros has been set aside for this.

The report says that the employee participation bodies are, on the whole, closely involved in establishing the expenditure plans. Student members consider, however, that the plans needed to be developed very quickly, despite the fact that the composition of the councils and programme committees was in the process of being changed.