It portrays a situation much more contrasted and probably less apocalyptic. First of all, while there are 34,000 European university students studying in the Netherlands in 2010, there were also 18,900 Dutch university students studying abroad.
Taking the average cost of 6,000 euros per year and per student, Zijlstra therefore estimates the total cost at some 205 million from which it is necessary to subtract the 115 million savings made by the Dutch students who are doing their classes abroad. It comes to a balance of 90 million euros.
It is actually more the uneven distribution of these students that is obvious. And if we add students or schoolchildren to primary and secondary education, there is something to ask questions.
For example, at all levels, 30000 students study in Belgium. While Belgians are barely 3,000 to cross the border to sit on school benches ...
What especially unleashed the passions is the rate of German students in higher education and university. They are 24,000 to attend the Dutch amphitheatres. And they usually have better grades than the Dutch. Is this related to the fact that some border universities provide part of the courses in German? Many other courses are also taught in English - sometimes also "broken English" or even Globish, if we believe the testimonies of students ... One of them recently told me that she did not understand a word of what his art history teacher said, whereas she has lived two years in the United States and is fluent in English ...
But these students, if they cost the Dutch taxpayer and are partly responsible for the high cost of student housing in the Netherlands, also have significant advantages, says Zijlstra.
Thus, 30% of these students would assume the functions of managers in international companies at the end of their studies. And when they are installed, they make use of their Dutch network, which is of great benefit to the exporters of cheese and tulips ...
The good level of foreign students and their motivation superior to that of the Dutch would rather pull the level up, contrary to what the populist Cassandras say!
In addition, foreign students are often sources of innovation: they work in academic or industrial research centers and thereby contribute to the improvement of Dutch products and services.
Zijlstra concludes this first part by saying that there is a lack of data to offer a more complete panorama of the situation. It also recalls that the European treaties, signed by the Netherlands, prohibit discrimination against students from member states ...
The policy he intends to defend in the future is a mixture of good intentions (to maintain the quality of education) and clichés-a hundred times renamed, such as ensuring a balance between nationals and foreigners in classes, guarantee the defense of Dutch culture and language against "anglification" - while the 15 pages of his letter to Parliament are peppered with Anglicisms like "counterparts", "governance", etc. But he is careful not to put forward a single figure when it comes to financing both local and foreign students ...
Rest assured: the boiling Secretary of State already announces a second letter of intent in 2012 with more details!
But he wants to put Germany to work. For, with the reform of secondary education planned for the neighbor, the Dutch government expects a dramatic increase in the number of German students from the next academic year.
Taking as an example the existing agreements between Sweden and Denmark concerning student exchanges, he suggested asking the German border states to make a financial contribution for the reception of their offspring at Dutch universities. He also tries, through intense lobbying at the European Commission, to impose residence conditions on student candidates from elsewhere ...
And if that gave the idea to Belgium to ask compensation for Dutch students in Belgium, ten times more than Belgians at home? Elio Di Rupo, the new Belgian Prime Minister, will he soon send an invoice to his counterpart, Mark Rutte?
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