In the past two years, there have been a remarkably high number of first-year students who have stopped their law studies. The faculty is trying to figure out why.
‘We know that usually, a quarter of the students drop out’, says law dean Wilbert Kolkman. In the current and previous academic years, the dropout rate has been significantly higher, with about 35 percent of students in the Dutch law bachelor’s programme leaving. The English-language bachelor’s programme, at 22 percent departure, is more in line with other studies.
Questionnaire
To get more clarity on why specifically the students in the Dutch bachelor’s programme are quitting, the faculty board distributed a questionnaire to the dropouts on April 19. ‘This does not usually happen on this scale’, says Kolkman. ‘But the fact that it’s such a large proportion of students is something we take very seriously.’
Kolkman does not expect to find a single reason. The cause might partly lie in the poor alignment between high school and university, but it could also be related to the curriculum, he speculates. ‘One possible outcome could be that the first block needs to be a bit calmer to keep people engaged.’
He expects to have the results of the questionnaire in two weeks.