CDA suddenly champions English-taught education

For years, many political parties in the Netherlands were concerned about the influx of foreign university students and the “anglicisation” of their higher education system. In their view, the Dutch language would be undermined by both factors.

CDA used to be one of those parties, but the Christian Democrats have made a U-turn. Now, CDA is concerned that the Netherlands might be “throwing the baby out with the bathwater”.

MP Maes van Lanschot stated this in a debate about the budget of the Ministry of Economic Affairs. “Wennink also recently argued for more international talent and its importance,” he added, referring to a report on the future of the Dutch economy.

All eyes on UU's Economics programme
For example, Van Lanschot mentioned the Economics programme at Utrecht University, which is currently taught in English but will soon have to switch to Dutch (a decision taken by the Executive Board and the Association of Dutch Universities without first consulting the faculty and university councils).

"Dutch students are also losing the opportunity to follow this programme in English, even though 80 per cent of the concepts in Economics are in English," said the MP. "The working language of the companies where those students end up working is also English. We are shooting ourselves in the foot."

CDA called for "reflection," which rubbed VVD, the third party that D66 and CDA want to have in the cabinet, the wrong way. VVD was also part of the previous cabinet, which was much more right-leaning and made severe cuts to the higher education budget, also with the goal of reducing the influx of international students. The policy in this regard will only be partially implemented, and that's partly due to CDA.

Universities chose to take the bull by the horns and, under the guise of “self-regulation”, promised to switch some programmes to Dutch, such as the Economics programme in Utrecht. The Utrecht Executive Board initially kept this quiet, so the announcement of the switch came as a complete surprise to UU's economists. The Faculty of Law, Economics & Governance questions the legality of the decision.

Anglicisation
Claire Martens-America, a Member of Parliament for VVD, pointed out that until a year or two ago, CDA actually wanted to combat the anglicisation of Dutch higher education. After that, the party shifted its focus to aligning education with the labour market. 

About the Economics programme in Utrecht, Van Lanschot said that enough companies want to hire graduates from English-taught programmes. He assumed that both the English and Dutch tracks could be maintained. He also believes that UU could limit the influx of foreign students to some extent by establishing an enrolment cap for the English-taught track.

Martens-America had already considered this possibility in an amendment. She is disappointed that universities are making “minimal to no” use of it. Only eleven programmes will establish an enrolment cap for their English-taught tracks this year.

Minority cabinet
The party leaders of CDA, D66 and VVD are currently negotiating a coalition agreement. They hope to do so by the end of the month. 

In December, D66 and CDA drew up a joint agenda, which stated: "Universities will implement the existing agreements on the number of international students." They were probably referring to universities' promised “self-regulation”.