‘Internationalisation in Balance’ bill: a Cross-Border Impact Assessment for higher education
In late 2022, the House of Representatives instructed the Dutch government to take measures against the influx of international students into higher education. In response, the Ministry of Education asked the Dutch higher education system to stop actively recruiting international students and limit such recruitment to specific programmes. Following this request, the bill ” Internationalisation in Balance Act” has been published for open consultation.[1] This proposal calls for two-thirds of associate degree and bachelor degree programmes to be taught in Dutch; introduce a large number of fixes on the total number of international students from outside the EU and to implement a strict test on those courses not taught in Dutch. This bill has raised several questions, such as the implications for universities in border regions that aspire to international standing and depend on the influx of international talent to contribute to education and research in the Netherlands.
We conducted a Cross-Border Impact Assessment of the new policy to evaluate the effects of this proposal on universities in the border region (such as Maastricht University ), the mobility of cross-border international and European students and European citizens living across the border. In evaluating the expected effects of these policies, other relevant issues were also analysed: (1) the possible violation of European measures regarding the promotion of mobility of European citizens; (2) the impact on sustainable socio-economic development, and (3) the competitive position of Dutch universities in the border region.
Our analysis shows that the new policy will have implications on student mobility in border regions with large language differences (such as the German-Dutch border or the border with Wallonia). Furthermore, the implementation of the two-thirds Dutch language policy could interfere with the target languages of the EU alliances which mainly focus on the most widely spoken languages in the EU, among which Dutch hardly occupies a top position. Our analysis shows that given the position of Dutch in the EU, this new policy could affect the cross-border mobility of students, graduates and workers. However, less impact can be expected in the European Higher Education Area, since European (joint) programmes are exempt from the new policy. Havingsaid that, this law cannot be expected to violate EU legal measures promoting cooperation between EUmember states in education. It is also expected that universities in the Dutch border regions will be hit harder than their competitors in the rest of the country because of their social and economic ties with neighbouring countries.
We also tried to compare the internationalisation strategies of other universities in the border region in Belgium, Luxembourg and Germany. The evaluation of their strategies shows that although these universities in many cases offered higher education in a language other than English (Belgium: French and/or Dutch and/or German, Germany: German, Luxembourg: German and French), were nevertheless able to retain a good proportion of cross-border students retained while keeping education levels and the development index high. These data are interesting for the Netherlands to see how the new policy can still safeguard its position in the borderregions ‘and maintain ties with neighbouring countries. Furthermore, it is also interesting to note that Germany in the Maas-Rhine has adopted a more open attitude towards internationalisation in education and that Belgium is also trying to introduce more English-language programmes in undergraduate courses. This could mean that other universities across the border could attract more cross-border students, given the attractiveness of the language of instruction and their policy to welcome and retain more talents.
[1] https://www.internetconsultatie.nl/internationaliseringho/b1