Business community also very concerned about mammoth cuts to higher education

Signatories to the letter include Nationale Nederlanden, Siemens, TomTom, Royal Haskoning, Adyen, Lely, Urenco, Vodafone Ziggo and Friesland Campina. “Cuts to knowledge and innovation are in fact a cut to the future earning capacity of the Netherlands,” write the signatories of the letter, a joint initiative of Universities of the Netherlands (UNL) and employers’ organisation VNO NCW.

Future

“From small to ground-breaking inventions, they all start with research and education. This is about the future of our country: what will we earn our money with in the future,” VNO NCW president Ingrid Thijssen asks in the letter. “How do we ensure that we keep society running in the future with fewer people? Investments in research and innovation are the engine for this. And these investments also actually yield more money in the long run, than it costs us.”

In the open letter (in Dutch, see here), the signatories argue that investments in education, knowledge and innovation help develop skills for future generations and stimulate innovation. This, they say, is essential for economic growth and addressing societal challenges. They also point to the recently published Draghi report The future of European competitiveness (see here), which stresses the importance of large-scale investment in knowledge and innovation to prevent the competitiveness of the European economy from weakening even further compared to the US and China.

Long-study fine

For the time being, Minister Bruins of Education, Culture and Science (OCW) is continuing the cut of 1 billion a year, he revealed yesterday during the debate on higher education in the Dutch House of Representatives. However, he did express concern about the enforceability of the long-study fine, the much higher tuition fees students will have to pay if they take too long (nominal plus one year) to complete their studies. “I do find out more and more in recent weeks and months that I am facing a very complicated puzzle when it comes to the long-study measure,” he said. “For example, the disproportionate impact such a measure will have on some groups of students, such as poorer families, top athletes, first-generation students and students with disabilities.”

Mylou Miché, president of the Interstedelijk Studentenoverleg, is happy that the minister is considering the impact of the measure after months of consideration. “A lot of students are anxiously waiting and are already letting themselves be led by the fear of the long-study fine. That it has taken so long proves that it is an unworkable measure. The long-study fine is a bad idea.”