Wet internationalisering in balans

Reactie

Vraag1

I am an international associate professor at the University of Amsterdam.
Until today, I called myself lucky to live in a country where values of openness and internationalization are cherished and widely shared.
I actively contribute to the Dutch academic system with publications in international journals, and with high-quality and innovative teaching, for which I also won awards. I also embrace the Dutch culture and routinely reference it in my classes.
This law unfortunately will force me to leave the country. The level of proficiency needed to give a high-quality lecture is extremely high and our jobs are already very demanding on many fronts. It is unrealistic that international employees will be able to catch up on their Dutch skills without huge personal and professional costs and without compromising the quality of the education they can provide. I believe many colleagues will follow me in this undesired decision, especially the most talented ones, i.e., those with outside options and those who deeply care about the education they can provide to their students.
Science is global and its language is English. Dutch academia occupies excellent positions in international rankings also thanks to a net import of many talented foreign scholars. This is inevitably bound to change with the new law.

Vraag2

The policy is a bad and indirect cure for a problem that has many more direct solutions. Teaching well in Dutch is arguably harder than attending Dutch courses: The percentage of talented international professors leaving could end up being larger than the percentage of students steered away by the law.

Alternative solutions:
If the issue is the quality of education: Increase the number of NON-EU students (vs. EU students) as they bring more money than they cost and thus can finance a larger teaching body and better education quality for everyone.
If the issue is overcrowded cities: Negotiate with the EU the possibility to cap the number of international students admitted to Universities located in these crowded cities. Not all of the Netherlands has a housing crisis.
If you really want to use the language barrier: Leave the curriculum in English, and add a Dutch proficiency exam for international students, making it compulsory for graduation.