Bussemaker legt uit
Pikant is, dat het beleid van de minister wordt gepresenteerd als een terugdraaien van de Lissabon-strategie en de krachtige steun daarvoor in het beleid van een voormalige bewindsman. “When the Dutch prime minister, Mark Rutte, was deputy minister of education, from 2004 to 2006, the government was committed to the so-called Lisbon Strategy, which aimed to make the European Union a competitive knowledge economy,” legt de New York Times uit.
“Since then the government has stepped away from numerical objectives. In an interview the current education minister, Jet Bussemaker, said quality now has priority over quantity in higher education.”
Geen Blair-beleid
Bussemaker benadrukt dat het leenstelsel in ons land geen hardvochtige opzet kent, zoals dat van haar Britse partijgenoten van de Labour partij onder Tony Blair. “Her ministry had learned from changes implemented or proposed in countries such as Britain and Australia, featuring rises in tuition fees and sharp increases in student debt. She said the Dutch system was different, with tuition kept low, at €1,835 a year, compared with fees that have been raised as high as 9,000 pounds, or $15,000, in England. ‘We are not going to implement the British system’.”
Zij benut ook voor de Amerikanen het nieuwe woord voor de studielening, het studievoorschot, geheel on message dus. “The advance does not create a loan like a mortgage loan.” Since higher education typically translates into higher earning power “it is an investment in your future,” she added.”
Steun van PVV
En zo kan zij gaan investeren en de achterstanden in die uitgaven inlopen. “Investments in education have not kept pace” with growth, she said, promising increased spending on “measures that directly benefit students.” Eventuele terugval van de HO-instroom door MBO’ers acht de minister geen groot knelpunt. MBO-gediplomeerden “are qualified and can enter the job market and in many respects there is nothing wrong with that, because we badly need skilled professionals at MBO level.”
Haar beleid op dit punt krijgt de steun – in de krant in Amerika althans – van Harm Beertema, het PVV-Kamerlid dat omschreven wordt als ‘a former secondary vocational teacher who is now an opposition member of parliament for the right-wing Party for Freedom.’
