Dijkgraaf: Selection of students must be fairer
Selection for popular courses of study can lead to inequality of opportunity. Universities and colleges must do more to prevent this, says outgoing minister Dijkgraaf. Selection will become even more important in the future, he expects.
There has been criticism for years about the selection for courses of study with a limited number of study places. Students who are the first in their family to go to college, but also late bloomers, and students with a migration background have less chance of being admitted.
On your own
Programs select however they see fit was the gist of an extremely critical report from the education inspectorate a year ago. They devise their selection procedures “on their own, at their own discretion, and without consensus on what fair and effective selection looks like.” The minister had to do something about it.
Today Dijkgraaf sends a letter to the House of Representatives calling on the institutions to reduce inequality of opportunity. For example, he expects that courses will start using a lottery system more often again. If they continue to select for suitability, they must do a better job applying knowledge about this.
Shadow education
The minister emphatically opposes “shadow education:” training for selection procedures that not everyone can afford. “Selection should be about the qualities and skills of a prospective student, not about the thickness of the parents’ wallets.”
To avoid “bias,” he encourages training courses to use selection instruments that cannot be “trainable.” Why don’t candidates write their motivation letter at the training session instead of at home? Because one person is not helped there and the other is. Tests and collaborative assignments on location would also be an improvement, he thinks.
Finally, Dijkgraaf believes that institutions should provide better information about their selection procedures. This could give prospective students who find it all a bit scary the push to get involved.
Future
Selection obviously limits the accessibility of courses, making it all the more important that it be done carefully. Plus, in the future, the government may have to get more involved in determining which study options young people can follow.
Dijkgraaf returns to his reflections on the future. How can higher education contribute to all kinds of social challenges, such as an aging population and shortages in the labor market? According to him, selection can play a role in this.
He does not give hard advice, but he does point out “considerations,” such as more guidance and less free choice of study. He is having research done into this. The idea is for students to more often end up in studies that benefit society as a whole.
It may even be that you can no longer go to university with a pre-university diploma. “Universities of applied sciences would like to attract more pre-university students in a targeted manner in the future. Universities would like to stabilize the number of students through selective growth and shrinkage.”
Perhaps the government should once again have more influence on the selection, he also considers. Currently, administrators of study programs are responsible for making their own selection of students, but there are advantages and disadvantages to this. After all, it is “a recurring issue whether selection is at all the appropriate means to distribute training places.” Drawing lots could be fairer.
Preferential policy
There are also more social problems involved. “Segregation still plays a role in education. Young people from different backgrounds meet each other less and less often at school or training.” So the question of positive discrimination arises. Perhaps preferential policies should play a role in selection. Or as Dijkgraaf puts it, education in the future could “offer certain prospective students more opportunities than other groups during the transition to higher professional education and university education.”
But Dijkgraaf is leaving office and does not want to make decisions about this himself. “Increased reinforcement of the social task of institutions and a vision concerning the challenges mentioned above is up to the next government.”
