Photo Shutterstock The Senate will not block the long-term study fine at this time. A motion to this effect was rejected yesterday. Many senators, however, have issues with the budget cuts on education and research.
‘We really have only one resource in the Netherlands’, D66 senator Paul van der Meenen said yesterday during the General Debates in the Senate. And that single resource is knowledge, he added. ‘That makes budget cuts on this knowledge, science, and research very stupid.’
The other opposition parties voiced similar opinions, but their arguments fell on the deaf ears of the governing parties, which were willing to accept millions in austerity measures for education and research, the debate showed.
Hassle
‘We expect the budget cuts to result in a reduction of a great deal of unnecessary administrative hassle and needless layers of management’, BBB senator Ilona Lagas declared.
D66 senator Paul van Meenen argued that the cutbacks don’t focus on that goal at all. ‘The cabinet is clear on where the money is to be found. Research jobs in tertiary education will be lost, and we will cut expenditures across the board. There will be fewer teachers.’
Lagas had no answer. ‘I am an educator in heart and soul’ is all she said. She felt it was too early to discuss education, as that discussion must first take place in the House of Representatives, and, she said, the cabinet is sure to come up with good ideas.
Van Meenen was exasperated. ‘It is not as if I am just making up the cabinet’s plans’, he said. ‘We know what they intend to do, and that is precisely why we are gathered here, to discuss their plans. The fact that Ms Lagas simply stated that her heart beats for education and that everything will work out fine with this fabulous cabinet is a little too simple for my liking.
Dismissed
Senator Paul Rosenmöller of GroenLinks-PvdA took a different approach. The governing parties claim migration puts pressure on education, health care, and the housing market. If there is indeed so much pressure on education, why initiate billions in cutbacks?
BBB senator Lagas dismissed the argument, saying that Rosenmöller was grasping straws. Moreover, that discussion is yet to take place in the House of Representatives, ‘so I cannot comment on it now.’
The VVD was also not inclined to support the opposition. Isn’t education always important to the liberals? Senator Edith Schippers: ‘Budget cuts are never easy.’ Schippers would have preferred no cutbacks on research, but ‘in light of a solid budget, I can accept them.’ She is happy that many fiscal benefits for innovative businesses have remained intact.
Long-term study fine
Senator Niko Koffeman of the Partij voor de Dieren denounced the long-term study fine for students who fall back more than a year during their bachelor’s or master’s. They are required to pay an additional three thousand euros in tuition. ‘Students are squeezed while billion-euro corporates are coddled.’
Prime Minister Dick Schoof was unable to clarify why taking billions off the education and research budgets is such a good idea. ‘It must be done diligently and in consultation with the sector’, he stated. How the long-term study fine is to be detailed is yet to be decided.
Still, Koffeman submitted a motion against the long-term study fine. The motion may have been a little early, as it was rejected with 45 nays out of a total of 75 votes. The governing parties VVD, PVV and BBB (NSC is not represented in the Senate), were supported by SGP, CDA, JA21, ChristenUnie and 50PLUS.
Pending
Another motion opposing the budget cuts in education and research was not put to the vote. This motion was submitted by a group of parties that jointly hold 3 out of the 75 seats in the Senate: D66, GroenLinks-PvdA, Volt, PvdD, SP, JA21, the senator for local (OPNL) and 50Plus.
A comfortable majority could be achieved with support from the CDA and the ChristenUnie, but these parties apparently did not want to speak against the cutbacks yet, if at all. Van Meenen (D66) kept the motion to himself.
