The binding study advice is said to cause stress. Photo: Shutterstock Is it fair to discharge first-year students if they are unable to obtain sufficient credits during the corona crisis? And, equally relevant, how much does this cost?
There is increasing doubt over the binding study advice (bsa) in political circles. The CDA party started a discussion on the issue during the cabinet debate on the education budget. This party wants to investigate whether a different system would be better and put forward a motion.
That motion is put to the vote in the second chamber today. Opposition party Groen Links takes the motion a little further and calls for a non-binding study recommendation. This, too, is put to the vote.
Music to ears
This all is music to the ears of the Interstedelijk Studenten Overleg (Dutch National Students Association, acronym ISO). The ISO wants the bsa gone. A pamphlet is to motivate the parties to vote in favour of abolishing the rule. The bsa costs money and causes stress. Moreover, it sometimes amounts to an ill-concealed selection after admittance through a challenging study programme during the first year.
The minister backs the students. ‘What I disliked about the bsa, is that institutes were passing students around’, she addressed the second chamber. ‘This is detrimental to the students’ motivation, and is also a waste of education resources.’
The minister proposed lowering the bsa from 60 to 40 credits two years ago. Her proposal was not accepted, but the situation has now changed.
In Wageningen, the bsa is relatively lenient. Only 36 of the 60 credits are required. Last year, the threshold was lowered to 30 due to corona. In many other cities, the standard is higher; at the Erasmus University in Rotterdam, you are not permitted to skip even a single course in many curricula.
National treasury
The cost of the bsa for the state is not exactly known. The question is whether the bsa leads to a more effective and faster study trajectory (beneficial to the national treasury) or to a higher drop-out rate and delay (negative impact on the treasury).
The ISO refers to a study conducted among 1707 students in the economics department by the Vrije Universiteit, which shows that 43 per cent of the students who were discharged, enrolled in the same curriculum elsewhere.