Cutbacks cause shock at Centre for Academic Teaching & Learning

The CAT is one of the parts of the University Administrative Service (UBD) that has been hit hard by the cuts there. The centre has been tasked with cutting costs by 850,000 euros.

Converted to full-time jobs, this amounts to 10 FTE of the current 32 FTE. A total of forty people work at the university department. It seems inevitable that the CAT will have to undergo a reorganisation.

‘This naturally leads to great uncertainty and a lot of concern, but at the same time you also see that people are fighting back and working hard. Everyone is convinced of the added value of our work,’ says director Bald de Vries.

Bill elsewhere
The director understands that cutbacks are necessary, but considers the blow to the CAT to be ‘disproportionate.’ Especially when the halving of the budget for the Utrecht Education Incentive Fund, for which the CAT is responsible, is also taken into account. That will go from 2 to 1 million.

According to him, the CAT is being asked to cough up 12.5 per cent of the total cuts, while its budget only accounts for 4 per cent of the UBD budget.

According to De Vries, there is also a real chance that the bill will end up being footed by someone else. He is now receiving a lot of support from the faculties, where there are serious concerns about the consequences of the cuts at the central level.

After all, the CAT was established eight years ago to bring together all initiatives in the field of teacher development and educational innovation within the university. At the opening, then-rector Bert van der Zwaan spoke of “the dynamo of educational professionalisation”. Among other things, the educational leadership course and the Educate-IT programme for technological support of academic education now fall under the centre.

De Vries: 'The reports on the cutbacks mainly focus on the reduction in services, but in my opinion that does not fully reflect what we do. We really contribute substantively when it comes to discussions about changes in education.

‘In addition, we are also an essential link in all kinds of chains. We provide teacher support for the radical transition to the new BrightSpace digital learning environment. Within the faculties, they realise that you can't just cross out things like that.’

Own plan
The CAT director does not know whether the UU decision can still be reversed or toned down. He wants to come up with his own plan within a few months, which he hopes will enable him to meet the imposed budget cuts.

‘There is no doubt that cuts have to be made. I would just have preferred to have been involved at a much earlier stage in the substantive considerations that have to be made in such a process.’