Dijkgraaf no longer wants to say “higher education”
Minister Robbert Dijkgraaf wants to remove the term “higher education” from everyday language to increase equality between (vocational education options) MBO, HBO, and WO. “Anything we can do to make the differences smaller is good,” he said.
Dark clouds are gathering over education, if outgoing minister Dijkgraaf is to be believed. “Instead of being the social engine that leads to the improving the lives of large social groups, education threatens to become an instrument that actually perpetuates and increases differences,” he wrote to the House of Representatives today.
Graduates of universities and colleges live longer and healthier lives than others, he argues in his letter to the House of Representatives. Their income is higher, they accumulate more wealth, and are better represented in politics and government. “They are generally happier,” the minister said. “These advantages are passed on to the next generation. Your parents’ level of education helps determine what school you go to and what environment you grow up in.”
To counterbalance this, he outlines goals for politicians. Let MBO, HBO, and WO form a range: forms of education that lie side by side, with no difference in level. He thinks it would be a good idea for colleges of higher education to offer more master’s degree programs and develop their own doctoral programs (“professional doctorates”). And why couldn’t such a thing be done in the MBO, he wonders.
He would like to change the language, for starters. “For example, we could speak of HBO and WO as much as possible, instead of ‘higher education,’ and HBO/WO educated and MBO educated, instead of highly and poorly educated. Up and down can be replaced by the neutral expression ‘moving on.’” He continues to encourage students to get vocational education if they want to.
There is a contradiction in this. You list all the benefits of higher education and then tell students that they can also go to secondary school and miss out on all those benefits.
“Many forces in society make the differences greater. It’s almost like gravity. If you improve, are healthier, and have more money, then in turn you can offer more to your children, so they have more advantages: economically, financially, culturally... I’m enormously concerned that the disparities in our society are widening, as we are also seeing worldwide.”
But then should you encourage kids to attend MBO?
“Ultimately, we need all forms of education. You always have a natural diversity in society. Not everyone wants to pursue academic studies. Therefore, we need to ensure equality and that students at all levels are supported in the same way, have opportunities, and can continue learning in the same way.”
And then just have a lower income?
“There are sectors in vocational education where people make very good money. They can become entrepreneurs, for example. But the question is: Can they develop further in that? The range of vocational education is skewed somewhat. In the MBO sector, it stops faster. We have to make that equal. Income is also not the most important issue. There are professions where you earn more and some where you earn less. It is true that the average surgeon earns more than the philosophy graduate, but there are also very good reasons why people want to study philosophy. Nor is it true that education has a one-to-one relationship with health, et cetera. But anything we can do about making those differences smaller is good.”
What is the danger if politics does not take this into account?
“If you make the differences bigger via education, then support for education itself crumbles. Then people start saying that education is actually for a segment of society that is already well off and will only get better. Then that whole construct collapses.”
Good education and equal opportunities for all sounds logical for an Education Minister. But why would you like to see young people choose vocational training more often?
“This also has a practical reason. What does the country need at the moment? PhD physicists are needed, but surely also a lot of professionals in health care, engineering, education, etc. These are graduates of vocational programs and we must do everything we can to make these programs attractive.”
But university graduates are also apparently needed. They are rarely unemployed.
“We live in a world of labor market shortages. It makes little sense at the moment to say let’s stop these courses of study because we are training them for unemployment. A ‘negative’ directive is not going to work. It’s better to look at it in a ‘positive’ way. There are big social challenges in health care, education, climate change... We can make all kinds of great policies, but if we don’t have the people, it’s just not going to happen.”
In your opinion, are there students in the wrong place?
“I’m certainly not saying that large groups of students are in the wrong place, but on the other hand, in science education we see students who say, I find it too stressful, I’m only here because people said I should continue my education.”
Surely these are not large numbers?
“The universities themselves say 10 to 15 percent, but that’s entirely their estimate.”
That percentage is just a rough estimate on their part.
“I really don’t know. Look, in education we celebrate diversity. You want students to become the best version of themselves, in all professions. To do that, sometimes you have to make it a little easier to switch from one form of education to another. Why can’t you do combinations? Why can’t you do a college education and take a few courses in college or MBO? Suppose you say that you want to learn to make animations. Why shouldn’t that be possible? Then education can also bring people back together more. Right now in education students get pigeonholed and have a hard time changing direction.”
That’s not the same as saying just go to college.
“I’m not saying that everyone should go to MBO, but I also talk to WO students who felt like doing something creative, or just something else. For example, they would like nothing better than becoming a cameraman. Well, you can also become very good at that, you can win Oscars. So what do they need to go to law school for? We need to facilitate young people’s search more so they can change levels and directions. I followed a zigzag path myself.”
So is flexibility the ideal?
“In the long term, I think unbundling education will be the future. That sounds very dangerous, like a supermarket model where everyone can just do whatever, but I can imagine that in the future we will think a little more in terms of training and a little less in terms of a diploma.”
