Protests should not affect efficiency reforms

The Netherlands has seen its research universities prosper after the reform legislation of the mid-1990s. Yet these days there is unrest, albeit mostly at the University of Amsterdam where students complain about their lack of involvement in university decisions.

Staff feel that there is too much job insecurity. Students and staff demand more accountability of the university administration. The demands are that the government and university administrations should abandon their focus on efficiency, and that universities should be "democratised" so students and staff have more say on decisions on resource allocation within universities.

These protests raise doubts over the Dutch model of university organisation, however internationally highly acclaimed that model is. Essentially it is a model of full empowerment and autonomy of the university, combined with almost full public funding.

Universities receive their funding for education and research as a lump sum and are free to allocate these funds. They are free to select students if the university imposes a “numerus fixus” for a study course, they are allowed to send students who have not performed well enough in the first year away, they can choose their own means of instruction, they decide on their own staffing structure and jointly with all other research universities they negotiate collective bargaining agreements.

The university board is fully empowered and appointed by a board of supervisors. This board is composed of prominent members of society who do not serve in political positions, as civil servants or as full professors elsewhere. The Minister of Education, Culture and Science appoints the board of supervisors formally and universities are subject to quality control through an independent quality assurance organisation – the NVAO – which has been shown to have teeth.

Funding for university education is “output” driven: the formula is based in part on the number of students and in part on the number of graduates a university has, so universities have an incentive to ensure that students complete their studies once they are admitted and have passed the first year.

Successes

This system seems to have worked well for the past 20 years. Most Dutch universities have seen their rankings in both the Shanghai and the QS systems increase. The reputation of Dutch university education has grown, as well as interest in it from foreign students.

Maastricht University ended up as number six in the “50 under 50” Times Higher Education ranking for the top 50 universities that were younger than 50 years old. It is the only European university in the top 10, not least because of its reputation for excellent education.

So where do the protests come from for this apparently stellar system? The answer is first in change and second in employment conditions. Change is always, in every organisation, a problem; there are generally some losers, but the majority should be winners.

Those who are losers or fear they will be losers will object while the winners will adopt a “wait and see” approach. This is common in all walks of society. However, it is more vocal in the public sector in the absence of external competition.

Students feel that small language degree courses (such as the Czech degree course) should continue to exist even if there is only one student registered. They feel they would be losers if these courses were to be closed down.

The winners are the students on all other courses who are now paying a relatively high price for the Czech degree course student. The rationale that you might want to study Czech language elsewhere in the Netherlands or in Europe, or that the course should be restructured into a broader Slavic language course, has apparently not been convincing.

'Democratisation'

For Dutch observers who are not in or close to Amsterdam, the student protests seem strange. All Dutch research universities have in the past year restructured systematically to be more geared towards the development of student competencies. They have done this in collaboration with students and staff.

The eruption of the student protest including the occupation of buildings at Amsterdam Univerity was not expected, even though there were earlier signs of less than good communication with staff and students on major changes, like the integration of the science departments of the University of Amsterdam and the Free University of Amsterdam.

The student protests converge on two mottos: “democratisation” of the university and “an end to the efficiency rationale”. “Democratisation” stands for: more involvement and say in university managerial/allocation decisions, while presumably the “end to the efficiency rationale” is understood to imply that universities should be less accountable in terms of objective standards like throughput and output under the prevailing quality control system.

The staff protests are a mixture of concerns about job security, about what is seen as too stringent an allocation system for staff hours with regard to different types of work, and about the publish or perish culture. These are all reasonable concerns, but have little to do with the quality and academic content of an academic education.

The Minister has shown some sympathy for the students and staff who have occupied the Amsterdam buildings, in line with the general feeling among the media. I was the minister who passed the mid-1990s legislation and oversaw its implementation and I believe the rationale for the reforms stills stands.

A new reform is not necessary. It might actually be harmful as it could lead the universities astray in their (up to now very successful) search for high quality education and research. The university administration at Amsterdam, however, should be more concerned with the communication of the changes they are undertaking.

The Minister should refrain from supporting "illegal behaviour" even if it is with the best intentions and for the most laudable reasons. Her support of the students and the staff puts the university administration in an impossible situation and does not serve the goal of excellent education.

Jo Ritzen is an honorary professor at Maastricht University in the Netherlands.