Outgoing Minister Robbert Dijkgraaf is stoically continuing to tweak his ‘Internationalisering in balans’ (Internationalisation in Equilibrium) bill, with which he wants to regulate the intake of international students.

A sizeable majority of the new House of Representatives sees them as expensive and wants to make higher education mostly Dutch-spoken again. Because why would the Netherlands pay for the education of students who leave immediately after graduating, they wonder.

Importance

In a new letter on internationalisation to the House of Representatives, Dijkgraaf doesn’t say anything about the heated emotions on migration, let alone mention the outcome of the elections. He does offer the following remark: “I share the view that it is important to come to grips with the intake of international students and finding the right balance, also because many students are not staying.”

Will the bill be finished before there’s a new cabinet and, if so, will a majority of the House then accept the proposal? Neither of these things are a certainty. Dijkgraaf’s most important message now seems to be: handle the matter with the utmost care.

His bill had already been published online for an ‘internet consultation’ and this sparked a huge number of responses. Now he’s asking for advice from the Education Council before sending a modified bill to the Council of State for feedback purposes.

At the same time he’s keeping the pace high, he ensures the House of Representatives. The Education Council is only getting a month to give the advice, “to prevent any unnecessary delays in the legislative process”.

Direction

If it’s up to Dijkgraaf, the bill will provide ‘direction’ to internationalisation, “first and foremost by institutions themselves and secondly also by the government”. But this does require the institutions to pick up the gauntlet.

Which is why he wants to hear from the higher education institutions how they would like to shape that direction. What’s more, he thinks that they should be engaging in ‘self-direction’ in anticipation of the bill.

At the beginning of January they’ll need to tell him how they would like to handle such things as choosing between English- and Dutch-taught programmes, students’ language proficiency, recruitment abroad and housing problems in their regions. The Minister would also like to know what they are planning to do to make sure more of their graduates stay in the Netherlands.