The Olympic ideal reflected in higher education

05 Feb 2010

International top-grade students are of vital importance to the Netherlands, say Nuffic and leaders from the education sector and business community.

During the weekend of 23 and 24 August 2008, Nuffic, the Netherlands Organization for International Cooperation in Higher Education, highlighted the importance of international talent for Dutch higher education by placing a full page advertisement in de Volkskrant, the largest quality daily newspaper in the Netherlands. A number of leading figures from the business sector and the higher education field co-signed the advertisement, including top executives from Philips, Shell and Unilever.

 Under the heading ‘The Olympic motto and Higher Education’, Nuffic and the co-signatories stress the vital role that international talent will have to play in Dutch higher education.  
 

Why the advertisement? 

It was decided to place the advertisement after leaders from government, business and higher education agreed that internationalization of higher education deserved ‘a new sense of urgency’.

The advertisement was published on the eve of the opening of the new academic year, the day when all Dutch higher education institutions hold special meetings, enabling prominent speakers to address key themes in the areas of higher education and research for the following year. This year the speakers included Kofi Annan (at Wageningen University) and the Dutch Prime Minister Jan Peter Balkenende (at Erasmus University Rotterdam).  

Internationalization so far

Currently, some 70,000 of the 550,000 students in the Netherlands are from other countries. The majority of them are here only for a few months on the basis of exchange programmes.

The real top-grade students are often to be found at technical universities working on PhDs, or at art colleges in the country. For recent data go to http://www.nuffic.nl/international-organizations/information/mobility-statistics, or to www.studyinholland.nl for information on English-taught study programmes available at Dutch higher education institutions.