The Faculty of Economics and Business (FEB) will not continue with the experiment of a smarter academic year for now.
The UG is participating in a national pilot to experiment with a different structure of the academic year. In the Netherlands, the academic year is six weeks longer than abroad. We also have more exam periods. This leads to stress and fatigue among students and lecturers. The experiment will continue for another two years.
Five faculties – Economics and Business, Arts, Science and Engineering, Spatial Sciences, and Philosophy – each launched their own pilot projects, which also began at different times.
Shorter blocks
FEB was one of the first faculties to start. For the bachelor programme in Econometrics and Operations Research, the faculty introduced shorter course blocks. A study week was scheduled before the exams, and there were only two resit periods.
The initial reactions last year were positive. ‘But in practice, it turned out to be difficult for lecturers to work with two different academic year schedules within the same faculty’, a spokesperson stated. ‘The burden did not outweigh the benefits, especially since a lot of valuable data has already been collected.’
Rest of the country
The results are currently being evaluated. In doing so, RUG is looking not only at its own experiences but also at those of other universities. ‘Based on that, a recommendation will be drawn up’, says UG spokesperson Elies Wempe-Kouwenhoven.
This will include proposals for uniform start and end dates. Faculties, however, should retain the flexibility to schedule resits at their own discretion.