DUB cartoonist Niels Bongers bids farewell to 'visionary' Minister of Education Robbert Dijkgraaf

June 2022, robbing Peter to pay Paul

Dijkgraaf’s first major task was reintroducing the basic student grant, a benefit that had been scrapped in 2015 to make way for the so-called Social Study Loan (they never say “loan system”). However, after a few years, no one except Mark Rutte’s party, VVD, was in favour of it anymore. An easy score for the new minister, but, unfortunately, he soon had to announce that the new grant would be even less generous than the previous one and tuition fees would also be considerably higher.

March 2022, ‘Banquet’. 

One of Dijkgraaf's ways to get difficult issues through Parliament was to let the House choose from a few options. This happened when deciding on the precise design of the grant system: the total amount was fixed because it had been agreed upon during the coalition formation but the House was allowed to decide on variants for monthly amounts, the criteria for the supplementary grant, and so on. That was quite a clever move: this way, the system remains out of the discussion. The students were dissatisfied anyway, especially about the amount of the scholarship.

May 2023, ‘Student wellbeing’

The pressure to perform felt by many students was an important topic of Dijkgraaf’s mandate especially after Covid. Dijkgraaf wanted to take some pressure off of students’ shoulders by lowering the minimum number of credits required to move on from the first year to the second year (the so-called Binding Study Advice or BSA). Universities opposed the idea, loud and clear. BSA is also a famous motorcycle brand, hence the cartoon above.

September 2023, ‘Visionary’. 

During his time as a minister, Dijkgraaf worked on a few comprehensive memos that would finally put long-standing higher education issues in context and into perspective. Although it is a good idea not to always follow hot topics, he took his time preparing the memos. The “Future Outlook” was probably the most comprehensive one. When it finally saw the light of day, the cabinet had already fallen and no one was interested anymore.

June 2023, ‘In English, please’

One of the lingering issues of Dijkgraaf’s mandate concerned the internationalisation of higher education. The policy in this regard proved to be a victim of its own success: many programmes could no longer cope with the influx of foreign students. Dijkgraaf also wanted to look at this case from multiple angles and in a broader context, including from a European perspective. In that context, he called on neighboring countries to offer more English-language courses. And yes, one more time, the comprehensive internationalisation memo only appeared after the cabinet had collapsed.

November 2023, ‘Little Holland’

When the cabinet fell and new elections were approaching, Dijkgraaf was faced with all kinds of ad hoc proposals from the House of Representatives. He often tried to counter them by pointing out their impracticality, such as the proposal not to allow interest on student loans to grow with inflation. DUO's computer systems would not be able to handle that. Bongers’ drawing refers to a running gag from the satirical TV series “Little Britain”.

Robbert Dijkgraaf has only been a minister for a relatively short time, so I hadn't drawn him very often. To be honest, I didn't really get the hang of it either. He has a very characteristic appearance, but the “lightness” of his eyes, the glasses frames, and the hair color are quickly lost in my lines. It's a pity that there is no longer any opportunity to practice but, with the new cabinet, golden times are dawning for this cartoonist.