Can foreign students be barred from English-taught tracks? Only if the programme’s ‘teaching resources’ are stretched too thin, says education minister Eppo Bruins. The housing shortage or a desire to curb student migration shouldn’t factor into the equation.
The four coalition parties are keen to limit the influx of foreign students, and one way to achieve this would be to introduce enrolment caps for English-taught pathways within degree programmes. But the question is whether such measures would have the intended effect.
The idea would be to keep Dutch tracks accessible while capping their English variants, which would help avoid overcrowded lecture halls by reducing the number of foreign students.
Political purposes
But that’s easier said than done, as shown by Minister Bruins’ recent answers to questions from the VVD, and by the response of one of the programmes actually considering such an enrolment cap.
Because programmes aren’t allowed to use enrolment caps for political purposes – their only concern should be the quality of their education. If they’re short on resources, they could also limit the intake for Dutch-taught pathways.
Paving the way
The VVD was keen to speed things up last year. While Bruins’ predecessor, Robber Dijkgraaf, was still working on a bill to manage internationalisation, the party successfully tabled an amendment to pave the way for enrolment caps on English-language tracks.
The liberals wanted the new limits to be introduced in the 2025-2026 academic year, but The Hague doesn’t move that fast. This had already been pointed out by Dijkgraaf, and has now been repeated by Bruins in his answers.
The VVD’s questions show the party’s impatience on this issue, but systemic changes simply take time. Currently, students can only enrol at the programme level, but track-specific caps would allow them to apply for specific pathways within a programme.
The VVD asked the Minister which programmes were working on intake restrictions. “At the moment, only one programme has informed the Ministry of its plans to implement an enrolment cap for the 2025-2026 academic year”, the Minister replied.
Computer Science and Engineering
Enquiries with the Ministry have revealed that the programme in question is Computer Science and Engineering at Delft University of Technology, which has offered parallel English and Dutch tracks since 2023. But even this programme isn’t planning to introduce a track-specific limit until the 2026-2027 academic year, according to a written response from a representative.
The programme has already capped first-year enrolment at 550 places, for which Dutch applicants must compete with peers from around the world. It’s not yet clear how many Dutch students it will be able to accommodate once the track-specific cap comes into force, as this will depend in part on the number of available lecturers who can teach in Dutch. Or, as the programme puts it: there must be sufficient resources “to provide the Dutch-language components of the bilingual track”.
Language test
So how many programmes can we expect to apply for an enrolment cap? The Minister can’t say yet, and programmes may be reluctant to pull the trigger given the volatile political landscape. Meanwhile, the government wants to introduce a ‘foreign language education assessment’, which would require programmes to explain why their curriculum is taught in English. Should they fail to present a convincing argument, they would have to switch to Dutch.
The Computer Science and Engineering programme says the following about this: “We’ve heard of programmes that are interested in offering language tracks, but first want to wait and see if they pass the foreign language education assessment.”
Bruins is aware of this as well, but has little to offer these programmes in the way of reassurance. “I would like to emphasise here that the introduction of a track-specific enrolment cap as such will not affect the outcome of the foreign language education assessment”, he says. But he also notes that “Dutch should become the norm again.”
Resources
Once again reiterating the conditions for enrolment caps, the Minister underlines that they can only be introduced to ensure education quality. “For instance with a view to the availability of classrooms, workspaces, lecturers or internships”, writes Bruins, who doesn’t get involved in the decision-making around this. “It is not for me to decide when an enrolment cap is warranted. That decision lies with the institutions.”
But political motivations shouldn’t play a role in this process, Bruins points out: “It is not permitted to implement an enrolment cap for reasons other than the availability of teaching resources, such as the scarcity of student housing or a desire to limit student migration.”
Tension
This is at odds with the announced ‘institutional autonomy’ and ‘governance agreements’, which will stipulate that institutions do in fact need to take such issues into account. “These could be agreements on student accommodation, the administrative language used by institutions or the Dutch language skills of teaching staff (including non-native Dutch speakers)”, the Internationalisation in Equilibrium bill states.
With regard to track-specific enrolment caps, the bill requires institutions to “carefully weigh the interests involved”, explaining that “This should be done at the institutional level, in consultation with other institutions and with due consideration of the macro situation in the Netherlands and the region.”