‘Personally, I’m proud that we’re fully reversing the cuts to education’, said D66 leader Rob Jetten on Friday afternoon at the presentation of the coalition agreement Aan de slag – bouwen aan een beter Nederland (Getting to work – building a better Netherlands).
The three parties are reserving an additional 1.5 billion euros for education and research. That money will have to cover a lot. Amongst other things, it will be spent on senior secondary vocational education (MBO), improving education quality, tackling the teacher shortage and strengthening the Inspectorate of Education, as well as on ‘investments in research and science and in students’ purchasing power’.
Education-focused D66 actually wanted to spend several billion euros more on education and research. Their plans were dropped during the negotiations, with CDA and VVD quite probably opposed.
Students
Much in the agreement remains unclear. Take students’ purchasing power: it says that the basic grant for students living away from home will increase, but not by how much.
The three parties also want to introduce a mandatory internship allowance, possibly supported by an internship fund for deficit sectors (for companies with limited resources). But the amount of that allowance has yet to be determined.
They also plan to cap interest on student loans at 2.5 percent, to prevent debts from rising unchecked in future. It should be made easier to pay off a loan through one’s employer, allowing former students to clear their debts more quickly.
In addition, the parties say they want to ‘invest in students’ mental wellbeing and resilience’, though this too hasn’t been fleshed out. ‘Educational institutions will be given the scope to provide proper support and deploy student psychologists’, the agreement states. And also: ‘Initiatives by students and young people themselves will be actively encouraged.’
Internationalisation
The parties have also reached agreement on international students and researchers. They’re keen to ‘attract top scientific talent, needed for groundbreaking research and innovation’.
Internationalisation should also help attract skilled professionals ‘in the sectors facing the greatest challenges’, such as ICT and engineering, and possibly healthcare. Labour shortages exist across other areas as well.
As a result, English-taught education is no longer seen as a problem by the coalition. The existing non-Dutch-taught programmes will be maintained, they’ve agreed. They’re even scrapping the planned test for new ‘foreign-language’ degree programmes.
So how will they keep control over the intake of international students? To that end, they intend to make ‘binding administrative agreements’ with higher education institutions.
Regional interests will weigh heavily in these agreements. ‘Higher education institutions need international talent to sustain business and knowledge clusters in the region’, the three parties state. ‘We will give them the space to do so.’ They cite Brainport Eindhoven, Wageningen Foodvalley and Noviotech Campus in Nijmegen as examples.
The cabinet also wants to make funding for MBO and higher vocational education (HBO) stable and predictable. ‘Institutions will become less vulnerable and less dependent on fluctuations in (international) student intake,’ the agreement says. This doesn’t appear to apply to research universities.
National assessment for teacher training
There will be ‘one strong foundation’ for teacher training programmes, the parties write. ‘Teachers and researchers will jointly determine the national core of the curriculum, with greater emphasis on basic skills such as reading, writing and arithmetic.’
Teacher training programmes will, in principle, also have the same exams. ‘Teacher training programmes will be subject to the same national assessment, so that every newly qualified teacher has the same solid foundation.’
Lifelong learning
Lifelong learning also features in the agreement. This refers to training for working people who either need to move into another sector or keep up with developments in their own field.
‘Structural funding’ will be made available: 100 million euros. The lifelong learning measures still need to be worked out, but universities of applied sciences – which are seeing student numbers fall – in particular have spent years lobbying for a larger role in this area.
Defence
Spending on education pales in comparison with defence spending. Higher education institutions may benefit from that too, as the parties want closer cooperation between government, industry and knowledge institutions.
‘To safeguard our technological edge, the cabinet aims to establish a defence innovation authority’, the agreement states. ‘This authority will also co-finance joint research projects with knowledge institutions that are of added military value for national defence.’
An ‘increasing share of up to 10 percent of the defence budget’ will be allocated to this. That could amount to roughly two billion euros.
Budget cuts
Ultimately, citizens and businesses will have to pay a five billion euro ‘freedom contribution’. One way or another, everyone will be expected to contribute.
The cabinet also wants to cut six billion euros from the health insurance excess and shorten the maximum duration of unemployment benefits from two years to one. From 2033 onwards, people will also have to work longer before receiving their state pension.
Not set in stone
Together, D66, CDA and VVD hold 66 seats in the House of Representatives, ten short of a majority. They’ll therefore need opposition support for all their plans. The coalition agreement isn’t set in stone.
On some issues, the government may work with GroenLinks-PvdA, while on others it may seek backing from right-wing parties such as JA21 and SGP, which together hold enough seats to secure a majority.
The coalition talks in recent weeks were led by informateur (inquirer) Rianne Letschert, president of the Executive Board of Maastricht University. She may soon move to The Hague herself.
Letschert hopes the future ministers will seek broad support in society for their plans, she said while presenting her final report to the House of Representatives. It will take a lot of effort, she believes. ‘I’d advise them to buy a good coffee machine.’
The House of Representatives will debate her final report and the agreement next week. Jetten will then be officially appointed to the task of forming the new cabinet, in which he himself will serve as prime minister.
Informateur Rianne Letschert at the presentation of her final report.
