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Protest over plan to end English-taught psychology degrees

Thousands of scientists and students have signed an open letter protesting a proposal by the Netherlands’ peak universities body that Randstad universities scrap a number of English-taught programmes – a proposal that heavily affects bachelor psychology programmes at five major universities. The signatories argue the move is “unfair, misplaced and naive”.

On 15 April, the Universities Netherlands (UNL) pitched a programme proposal to the government, ostensibly demonstrating the sector’s capacity for self-regulation in order to convince the government to drop the strict new foreign language education test, the Toets Anderstalig Onderwijs (TAO).

The TAO is part of the draft Internationalisation in Balance bill and is intended to evaluate whether permission will be granted to teach a programme in a language other than Dutch. The government sees the TAO as a way to force a number of English-language bachelor's programmes to switch back to Dutch.

“International education is of great value to all students. Dutch students benefit from English-language tracks because it improves their language skills, broadens their worldview, and actively engages them in the latest scientific developments in the lingua franca of science itself,” the open letter argued.

“International students gain access to excellent education that is often unavailable in their own countries. In this international community, connections are made between students from different countries, which creates mutual understanding and lasting relationships in the generation of the future,” it added.

The open letter was produced on 28 April by the psychology programmes of the Free University, the University of Amsterdam, Erasmus University, and the universities of Leiden and Tilburg.

By 9 May it had attracted over 2,960 signatories who supported the notion that international bachelor programmes are essential for the high standard of psychological education and research in the Netherlands.

“Sacrificing international bachelor programmes would seriously damage the quality of both education and research in psychology,” they stated.

Unfair, misplaced and naive

The signatories say the UNL proposal is unfair because it almost exclusively affects psychology and thus makes one discipline “bear the entire burden of this policy”.

They argued that the proposal is also misplaced because creating a language barrier, as the government is seeking to do through its test, “does not address the core of the problem, namely the influx of international students”.

They also stated that the proposal is “strategically naive” because there is “no guarantee that the pressure to reduce international programmes will stop once psychology becomes fully Dutch-language again. On the contrary, this proposal opens the door to more far-reaching policies and undermines UNL’s position to prevent future political interference in academic education”.

Explaining their support for the UNL proposal, the Leiden University Executive Board said that in order to limit the effects of the Balanced Internationalisation Bill and the TAO, the universities have chosen a process of “self-governance”.

“Within the scope of this self-governance, the universities have jointly decided that all psychology degree programmes in the Randstad area of the Netherlands will be completely Dutch-taught. This means that – if the representative bodies approve this plan and from 1 September 2027 at the earliest – the English psychology track in Leiden will be phased out,” the board stated.

Reaction to the proposal has been mixed. The national interest group WoinActie described it as an “unacceptable negotiation tactic” in which some courses were being used in a transaction.

“You feel a bit thrown under the bus,” Marjan Gorgievski, associate professor at the Department of Work and Organizational Psychology at Erasmus University Rotterdam, Marjan Gorgievski-Duijvesteijn is Associate Professor at the Department of Work and Organizational Psychology at Erasmus University Rotterdam, told Erasmus Magazine.

Professor of clinical psychology at Erasmus University Rotterdam Matthias Wieser called it a big misunderstanding that all psychologists become therapists and therefore have to speak Dutch: “Then you hear [former leader of the New Social Contract Pieter] Omtzigt say all the time that therapy can't be done in English, and then you think: that politician just doesn't know anything about it, because psychologists work in so many more places.”

Minister reacts

In the House of Representatives, Minister of Education, Culture and Science Eppo Bruins called the universities’ self-management plans “historic” but is yet to drop the proposed language test for all non-Dutch programmes, a move he said would require careful consideration.

“Suddenly dropping that test at this point would effectively require me to reconsider the objectives of the bill. That would mean surrendering my means to exert any form of control over the objectives that the Lower House and several ministers have been talking about for over a decade,” he is reported by Mare to have said.

According to Mare the minister promised to present a memorandum of amendment before the summer.

His spokesperson confirmed that the minister has not yet made a decision. “The entire proposal is on his desk, including the option to remove the language test. All perspectives have been heard, and a new letter will be published before the summer,” the spokesperson stated.

In an interview with Mare, Leiden University’s Board President Annetje Ottow and Vice-President Timo Kos said that the universities and the ministry believe the counter-offensive “has a good chance of success”, that the universities are not open to negotiation on this matter and that Leiden will only abolish the English-taught track in psychology “if the language test for existing programmes is taken off the table”.

Ruben Puylaert, spokesperson for the UNL, told University World News that the organisation had “taken note of the petition. We understand that people involved with the affected bachelor programmes are concerned. Universities, together with UNL, speak with the people from psychology.

“A key condition for our measures is that the mandatory non-Dutch-taught programme assessment (TAO), as set out in the proposed legislation, will be removed for existing programmes. Its application should be restricted to newly established bachelor programmes only”.

He concluded: “If the TAO proceeds in its current form, we foresee that many more programmes would be forced to switch to Dutch-taught instruction. This would lead to an excessively severe reduction in internationalisation across our universities. With our package of measures, we believe we offer a well-balanced and constructive alternative to the TAO.”