Education Inspectorate: messing around with selection is "shocking”

“We’re really disappointed”, said Inspector General Alida Oppers during an interview about The State of Education, the annual report (in Dutch, Ed.) published by the Inspectorate of Education. “This is the third or fourth time we have written about these issues.”

For several years already, the Inspectorate has been warning that the Higher Education and Research Act is on its last legs. Or, in more diplomatic language, the law is outdated and politicians need to do something about it.

“The warning inherent in our report is that we have to stay on top of our business”, says Oppers. The problems detailed in the report — such as students' language proficiency, the supervision of the quality of study programmes, and the fragile support base for faculty and university councils — all sound very familiar. 

Take quality supervision, for example. In the past, Dutch politicians often used reassuring words, saying that all higher education study programmes have been accredited by the Dutch-Flemish accreditation association (NVAO), so they are fine. “The programmes have been accredited, but is that enough?”, Oppers wonders.

Hopeful
In her opinion, the Minister of Education, Robbert Dijkgraaf, understands the criticism as he has been working on a substantial study. “He wants to take an in-depth look at how higher education works, which gives us hope. We look forward to finding out what will emerge from this.”

Susanne Rijken, Inspector for Higher Education, is sitting alongside Oppers. They both underline why the Higher Education Act is getting out of date. “It was created at a time when there were very few international students and digital teaching didn’t exist yet”, says Rijken.

Problems with internationalisation were not an issue at that time, so the topic is not really covered during accreditations. There are more blind spots in quality supervision as well: for example, work placements are very rarely examined, even though the inspectors say there is so much more that could be achieved.

Political choice
There are also plans to leave quality supervision to the higher education institutions themselves, the so-called "institutional accreditation". That means that they will check the quality of their own teaching, and all the government would do is make sure they do it properly. “It’s a political choice”, observes Oppers. “But then it becomes harder for the government to say that it wants to look more critically at language proficiency or internationalisation. If you don’t think that’s important, you can of course leave it to the institutions themselves.”

Moreover, politicians have been passing on certain topics – such as safety from inappropriate or abusive behaviours and students' mental health – to councils. But does that solve the problem? University councils are under pressure too: most students don't even know what a "programme committee" is and does. “We found that out ten years ago”, says Rijken. “All sorts of things have been tried, so many solutions have been devised. How do we get students excited about student participation? But nothing has changed.”

The Inspectorate concludes in its report that there are “alternative ways of setting up representation that are more in keeping with today’s world”. Maybe new forms of "citizen participation" through digital solutions should be considered, Rijken speculates. But the main point is that things need to change through and through because they are simply not working right now. 

Shocking
But these changes are not going to happen out of the blue, notes the Inspectorate. Institutions are happy to continue on the beaten track. Take admissions, for instance. The selection procedures are unsound, the Inspectorate reported earlier this year. In fact, everyone is doing what they like and study programmes are tinkering with equality of opportunities.

“That is shocking”, Oppers says. “One of the problems is that study programmes often don’t consider the effect of their actions on equality of opportunities. What is the bias in their procedure? To what extent can they justify their choices? Those are questions they struggle with. Meanwhile, programmes are getting more and more selective!”

Shouldn’t the Inspectorate take action, if the quality of higher education is at risk? “Through The State of Education, we’re taking a good hard look at educational institutions”, explains Oppers. “But we’re not the ones that can solve the problems. In the end, that’s up to the institutions and study programmes themselves.”