Céline Zahno | Delivery Service: Now Mandatorily in Dutch
Education minister Robbert Dijkgraaf has announced that all international students may soon be obliged to take Dutch courses. A good decision, finds student columnist Céline Zahno.
I hear the familiar hum of an electric motor behind me, but keep my speed steady. As expected, no need to slow down. Within seconds, the orange box on a bike drives in front of me, a helmet peaks out at the top.
It had to happen eventually; his left hand stretched out to the side, accompanied by a quick look, but then, the car was already there. The delivery driver screams as he breaks and falls on the ground. Someone jumps out of the car; first some impulsive Dutch swearing and then a worried: “Is alles oké, kun je me horen?”
Delivery drivers fill the bike lanes, and the appeal of their job is not that apparent. They have to be outside no matter how bad the weather is, some get paid by the number of deliveries completed, and almost no social interaction is involved. But this informality might just be the essence of its attractiveness. The hiring process is easy, and no prior experience is required. And it involves almost no customer interaction. This can be a relief, especially for those who do not speak Dutch, such as many international students.
Robbert Dijkgraaf, the minister of education, has recently announced that all international students must soon learn Dutch if they study in the Netherlands. This would increase the amount of students that stay in the Netherlands to work after their studies.
I do not think the importance of this decision lies in the fact that internationals integrate more easily into the labor market. Sure, that is an added benefit. But the real value of speaking Dutch is that students can participate in Dutch communities. Language proficiency and extensive complex conversations are probably not a realistic, nor a necessary goal. A basic command suffices to allow students to be a stable part of a social network, instead of remaining amongst the informal orange boxes, where they are currently stuck.
I am lucky. I am a German native speaker; it was easy for me to get a basic grip on the language. But it was just as easy to stop practicing. A proficient level would not have been very hard to acquire but I just did not put in the effort, because I did not have to. Everyone speaks English, and most Dutch people do not seem bothered by having to switch languages. Making Dutch class mandatory clears this obstacle of insufficient incentives.
Even if most people will not get to a level of Dutch that is good enough for them to work here, that is not what this is about. Simple interactions allow internationals to exit their isolated social bubbles and maybe make Dutch friends or enter the social circles of locals. And if not that, it at least clears away the constant need of having to test grounds if someone is a foreigner or not before talking to someone – always implicitly dividing people into groups of ‘us or them’.
No one wanted to ask the delivery guy on the ground whether he spoke Dutch or English before asking if he was okay. And it would be just enough if he was able to respond: “Ja, maar ik denk dat er iets… uhh.. dislocated is.”
Céline Zahno is a Political Science student at the UvA. She is from Switzerland.
