Will new Dutch rule on offshore education hinder internationalisation?

In 2007, the then Dutch Education Minister wrote a memo indicating that all students studying for a Dutch degree must have studied on Dutch soil for at least one year. Current State Secretary of Education Halbe Zijlstra has now announced his plan to work out this rule in detail, and turn it into a government decree before next summer. This requirement is holding back the international ambitions of at least one Dutch university, according to a recent article in the daily Leeuwarder Courant.

Not many Dutch higher education institutions offer their own degree programmes abroad – in contrast to countries such as the UK, the US and Australia. One exception is Stenden University of Applied Sciences, which has four small campuses in Indonesia, Thailand, Qatar and South Africa, where it offers Dutch degree programmes. Stenden students can study at the foreign campuses, but the campuses also attract local students who are keen to study for a Dutch degree in their home country. For Stenden – and any other Dutch institutions that may be contemplating offering their degree programmes abroad – the decree may make this much more difficult for them.

A strange rule

I wonder what the reasons are behind this requirement. What does the Secretary hope to achieve? Does he hope it will prevent fraudulent activities? I believe there are other, more suitable measures, e.g. through accreditation and quality assessment of domestic degree programmes offered abroad, by official quality assurance agencies. In other countries, such as Australia and Denmark, this appears to be an effective strategy. This is also the case for UK higher education programmes, where over half of all foreign students enrolled in UK degree programmes, study outside of the UK.

Compared to degrees offered at home, there will obvisouly be additional aspects that need to be taken into account in quality assuring degree programmes offered abroad. Accreditation and assessment take into account aspects such as the quality of the programme, including any necessary adaptations to local conditions in the host country, and the organisation and communication between the home institution and the foreign campus or host institution.

It is understandable that the Education Ministry wants to prevent Dutch public funding to be used for developing degree programmes and branch campuses abroad. But will the upcoming decree help prevent this? It is probably not the right instrument.

A team of three professors, Frans Zwarts of University Campus Fryslȃn, Stephen Dunnett of the State University of New York, and Hans de Wit of Amsterdam University of Applied Sciences, have recently researched the state of internationalisation at Stenden University. According to Leeuwarder Courant, they are appalled at the Education Secretary’s announcement. They rightly argue that a degree should be closely related to content and quality of the programme, and not to location.

Benefits of offshore programmes for foreign students

The ministerial rule is likely to lead to fewer foreign students to enrol in Dutch degree programmes offered in their country. Most of these students do not have the financial means to live and study in the Netherlands for an academic year. For foreign students at Stenden’s foreign campuses, obtaining a Dutch degree reportedly was the prime reason to study at a Stenden campus. For many of them, the opportunity to study for a Dutch degree from a Dutch institution will be gone.

Benefits of offshore programmes for the Netherlands

The rule is also likely to hinder the internationalisation efforts of Dutch universities. Fully offshore programmes can have benefits for the Netherlands, and I am not in the first place thinking of income generation. Institutions that offer degree programmes abroad can feed local knowledge back into the home institution to enrich the home curriculum. The need to provide a high quality programme is without question: if the quality is low, the programme will be unsustainable in the long run, and the international academic reputation of the home institution will suffer.

Offshore programmes can help Dutch institutions expand their international reputation. They can also help build and expand institutional networks in the host countries, and satisfied foreign alumni are likely to enter into Dutch collaborations in the future. Even if they have not lived in the Netherlands, they have studied for a Dutch degree and learnt Dutch approaches to learning and thinking.

It is therefore a pity that the international aspirations of some Dutch institutions are restricted.

And what about online degrees?

The new rule also raises the question of foreign students following Dutch online degree programmes. These students would then also be required to live and study in the Netherlands for at least one year – and so the core aim of providing online education (i.e. to expand access to higher education opportunities) would be lost.

Is it time for the Education Secretary to reconsider his intentions?