These days at university, it is difficult to avoid reality: higher education in the Netherlands is under attack. On November 14th and November 25th, we protested in our thousands against budget cuts amounting to one billion euros. Alongside other proposals– including a hefty fine for students who take longer to complete their degree and significant cuts to international programs, students, and staff– universities in the Netherlands are facing an onslaught of short-sighted policies. The costs will be more than financial, with massive losses to research, education, and society.
We applaud Leiden University for standing against these cuts and for supporting students and staff in their protests. At the same time, as students of the Humanities (among other faculties) we are very concerned by the proposed and potential changes that face many studies at our own university. Many of these programs exist only at Leiden University and if they disappear, that is not only a loss to this university but to the entire country. For those that haven’t already been handed a death sentence by merger, like Africa Studies and Middle Eastern Studies, another threat has solidified under the new proposed laws for higher education: switch the instruction language to Dutch, or else.
As many in our university community already realize, this demand amounts to a quiet march to oblivion for English-language programs. It’s not just international students that opt for bachelor programs offered in English; Dutch students are choosing English-language programs or tracks for a variety of reasons. Requiring all bachelor programs to transition to Dutch will decimate the community of international staff and students here at Leiden University, and it will also detract from their appeal to Dutch students. Particularly for the smaller studies characteristic of the Humanities, enrollment is likely to plummet. If they’re not slashed now, a drop in enrollment due to change of the language of instruction will make them vulnerable to later cuts.
Major loss
In this context of national cuts to higher education, strict limits on English language programs, and massive blows to the humanities at Leiden University, we cannot help but see Urban Studies on the chopping block in the near future. Though as current students our own educational trajectories would not be impacted, we believe this would be a significant loss to the university, prospective students, and academic research.
Urban Studies is the only bachelor of its kind in the Netherlands. Established less than a decade ago, it is an interdisciplinary program that brings together the social sciences, humanities, natural sciences, and law. Our professors and students come from diverse backgrounds, bringing different perspectives to the table. And today, at a moment of unprecedented urbanization, when more than half of all people globally live in cities, our curriculum is undoubtedly relevant to the opportunities and challenges we face as our society rapidly reorganizes in new urban forms.
The Netherlands is a fascinating country for studying cities, known for its innovations from multimodal transit to urban biodiversity. Our program isn’t isolated in the colloquial ivory tower– Urban Studies begins at the entrance of our campus. We study linguistic diversity in the Hague, policies on homelessness in Utrecht, sustainability initiatives in Rotterdam, and tourism regulations in Amsterdam.
The Netherlands is a fascinating country for studying cities, known for its innovations from multimodal transit to urban biodiversity. Our program isn’t isolated in the colloquial ivory tower– Urban Studies begins at the entrance of our campus. We study linguistic diversity in the Hague, policies on homelessness in Utrecht, sustainability initiatives in Rotterdam, and tourism regulations in Amsterdam.
Distortion
Under the new stringent requirements for language instruction, Urban Studies (like many other programs) is at risk of a forced transition to Dutch. While the universities of the Netherlands have advocated for the right to impose a ‘numerus fixus’ on English-language programs for years and are coordinating on expanding Dutch programs, the new law ‘Internationalisering in Balans’ is a nationalistic distortion of their demands that demands universities transition almost entirely to Dutch without regard for the heavy costs, literal and intellectual.
While we are by no means opposed to a Dutch track of Urban Studies, we are very concerned that if the program is forced to transition to Dutch under the new “Toets Anderstalige Onderwijs” (TAO) alongside the massive budget cuts, enrollment will plummet and many of our professors will be let go. It's not only international students we’d be losing– students across the Netherlands are choosing to follow their bachelors in English, and this program is no different. Here’s what Urban Studies students have to say about why Urban Studies is worth keeping:
‘In order to solve wicked problems like climate change, political tensions, the housing crisis, it is necessary to understand the role of disconnection in perpetuating inequality underlying these crises. Urban studies is a multidisciplinary program that allows students to explore how the economic, environmental, and cultural interact with one another and promote ways of thinking that develop connections essential to improving cities and therefore people’s lives.’
‘It offers a versatile and broad range of social studies that can be useful in professions as even politicians who would also possess knowledge on society, psychology and economics, so they could have broader thinking processes to improve people's lives through implemented policies.’
‘Cities don’t exist in a vacuum and to study cities we would have to have an interdisciplinary approach like Urban Studies teaches. Urban life is so chaotic and the studying of cities is still relatively new that cutting it out would be cutting the future from us as cities are the future of living. Exposing oneself with philosophy, psychology, history and the topography of the city is the way to go for innovation to solve spatial, socio-cultural and even political challenges cities face.’
Political theatre
These are only a few of the responses we received from fellow students, but the message is clear: Urban Studies is a critical discipline now more than ever, and it is important that the program is taught in English. While we believe that Urban Studies fulfills the requirements of the “Toets Anderstalige Onderwijs”, like the Universities of the Netherlands, we reject the enforcement of such a draconian measure that prioritizes political theatre over the public good. Alongside the massive budget cuts and the study fines, the “Internationalisering in Balans” and the TAO are nothing more than attacks on higher education in the Netherlands.
Leiden University will celebrate its 450th anniversary this February. Dick Schoof has been prime minister for less than half a year. Our support goes well beyond the twenty thousand who mobilized for the national protest on a dreary November day; public opinion is on the side of higher education. By the time the budget cuts and language requirements have been implemented– sacrificing studies, scholars, students and academic research– this cabinet will be long gone. We students call upon the CvB of Leiden University to stand up for higher education, and refuse to play along with this regressive, short-sighted agenda. We will continue to take to the streets in our thousands, but we cannot save higher education without you on our side.