Photo Shutterstock A majority in the House of Representatives supported the D66 amendment to prevent corona relief for students from impacting mid-level vocational education and higher education budgets. The only parties to vote against were VVD, CDA and PVV.
The cabinet has earmarked a sum of 8.5 billion to be spent on corona relief for education in the coming 2.5 years. However, the cost for extra student loans and extended public transportation rights will not appear until after that two-and-a-half-year period. Thus, the cabinet “parked” 149 million in cutbacks on the OCW-budget, the spring memorandum revealed (this link, and all the following links in this article, leads to Dutch content).
According to Minister Van Engelshoven, there was never any intent to cut spending on mid-level and higher education. She stated that the “technical booking” in the OCW budget was to be fixed during the formation of the new cabinet. However, the education institutes and part of the House of Representatives were wary of this promise, which resulted in the D66 amendment that has now been ratified.
Teachers
The House of Representatives also made a case for teachers wishing to follow courses like a masters’ programme. A ‘teachers grant’ has been available a few years ago to cover tuition fees, study materials, and travel expenses.
There is a hitch, however: Since last summer, the cabinet’s funds for this provision have been depleted. The unions and leftist opposition were furious last week upon the ministry of OCW’s announcement last week that the applications of over 1200 teachers for this grant were denied.
On the shelf
The PvdA has a solution. There were funds available on the budget of the Ministry of Economic Affairs for businesses’ so-called “job-related investment tax reduction”. The provision was cancelled at the start of this year, but the earmarked 60.3 million euros is still available. PvdA representative Henk Nijboer suggested these funds may be used for the teacher grants. His amendment was accepted by the House of Representatives.
This money will be made available for the teachers grant until 2024. Thus, some 17.1 million euros becomes available for 2021. This decision was not made unanimously. The government parties VVD and CDA voted against, while D66 and ChristenUnie voted in favour of the amendment.
