Klaas van Veen on improving education
More money, less politics
Door Rob van der Wal
By Rob van der Wal
Rob van der Wal
Rob begon als student-redacteur bij UKrant en is sinds mei 2023 terug als vaste medewerker. Hij schrijft nieuwsberichten, achtergrondartikelen – met een voorkeur voor wetenschap – en houdt zich bezig met internationaliseringszaken. Daarnaast werkt Rob als freelance wetenschapsjournalist. In zijn vrije tijd is hij drummer, radiomaker en moestuinier.Klaas van Veen is done with the external interference in education. As professor of education and former vice dean at the Faculty of Behavioural and Social Sciences (BSS), he’s noticed that too often, the topic of education becomes a political discussion. ‘But it’s experts on the subject matter that should be having the discussions.’
Party interests subsuming the structural discussion is nothing new. In the seventies, this led to the cancellation of plans for a middle school, where students would all have the same curriculum for the first three years of their secondary education.
‘Middle school was a great idea in terms of education, but it never came to fruition because politicians started interfering’, says Van Veen. ‘Leftist parties thought it was a good idea because it would provide an opportunity for disadvantaged children, but the right didn’t like it because they felt it took children’s individual freedom away. But they completely missed what the concept was actually about.’
Budget
Another issue is the budget. ‘Dutch education is not being properly financed’, says Van Veen. That goes for the UG, as well. ‘That means there’s extreme work stress, and not enough time to properly design classes. We have so many experts, but we’re not utilising them enough.’
The minister shouldn’t interfere with substantive matters
One consequence of the lack of money is that it stimulates the UG and other universities to admit non-EU students. They pay higher tuition fees, which makes them financially interesting. At the same time, education minister Dijkgraaf wants to curb the number, because he feels they disadvantage Dutch students.
Dijkgraaf also wants to bolster the use of the Dutch language at universities. ‘But the minister and universities have completely opposing opinions on the issue’, says Van Veen. ‘The minister shouldn’t interfere with substantive matters; he should just take care of the structural finances for the education sector.’
The government did come up with extra money for education during the pandemic: the so-called NPO funds for learning deficits. ‘But those are just incidental subsidies’, says Van Veen. ‘They don’t last.’
Staff leaves
Van Veen has to personally deal with the direct consequences. As director of the executive office of twelve primary schools in Groningen, a position he holds in addition to his work as professor, he was unable to extend the contracts of two or three teachers for each school. Fortunately, his foundation had saved up some money, which means he’ll be able to extend the contracts for at least another year.
If the government doesn’t come up with structural funding, university education will also be faced with drastic choices. ‘This could involve not admitting any new students for a while, cancelling classes, or making groups bigger. Or you get rid of staff. But the moment you have the budget to rehire them, they’ve already found a different job. They won’t come back.’
A basic teaching qualification doesn’t mean lecturers were able to academically challenge students
The people who do stay with the universities tend to be great researchers, but they’ve not always been trained to be good teachers, Van Veen has noticed. ‘Just because these lecturers have a basic teaching qualification doesn’t mean they’re capable of teaching and academically challenging students. You really have to be able to challenge people and push them to be the best. That’s not the same as presenting material from a book in an enthusiastic way.’
These problems became especially clear during the pandemic. ‘We could see that large-scale online classes weren’t working. You could never properly reach students online. But lecturers didn’t have the time or knowledge to set up their classes any other way.’
Multiple choice
Another example is the multiple-choice exams that are administered so much. ‘Students cheated on those exams all the time during the pandemic’, says Van Veen. ‘That was always going to happen. It was too easy for students to share the answers.’
The most common response to the cheating was to monitor the students more closely and imposing strict sanctions. ‘I think they went about it the wrong way’, says Van Veen, who is in favour of devising a different way of testing. ‘In multiple-choice exams, all students have to do is learn a summary by heart. One time, we administered the same exam a while later. It turned out students had forgotten most of what they’d learned.’
People have been reacting the same way to the developments involving ChatGPT and artificial intelligence, says Van Veen. ‘Some lecturers want stricter control when it comes to the use of ChatGPT, but that’s the wrong response. We should sit down and talk to each other about how to handle these developments.’
The question remains, however, whether there’s an alternative to multiple-choice exams. ‘Multiple-choice exams are more reliable than open questions. In the latter, students will just write down everything they know in the hope that the right answer is among it.’
Unique opportunity
Then there’s the quality of education itself. Van Veen feels that students get away too easily with low grades. ‘Would you let a surgeon who only knows 60 percent of what he’s supposed to do operate on you? I don’t think so. These people have the unique opportunity to attend university, so they should make the most of it. We should make a nine out of ten the minimum passing grade, rather than a six.’
We should make a nine out of ten the minimum passing grade, rather than a six
Van Veen doesn’t blame the students for their minimal efforts; he blames the university. ‘We’ve designed education in such a way that they get away with just reading summaries.’
One option to truly improve the quality of education is to let students work on academic research. ‘We could reorganise education in such a way that students would be confronted with the complex questions right away, rather start them on introductory classes that gradually become more complex. Giving students the responsibility for a project that requires research has been proven to work.’
Lead
The way he sees it, we need to have a discussion about the quality of education and the way we test students’ knowledge. ‘The board of directors at the UG has to take that initiative, but they haven’t done anything about it in the past few years.’
In the absence of central leadership, the faculties have now partially picked up the discussion themselves. At BSS, for example, educational experts are working on one one with lecturers. During the pandemic, they provided advice on how to ensure students remained involved in the lectures and how to create tests that would push them to be the best.
But leaving each faculty to fend for itself isn’t an ideal approach. Van Veen feels that in addition to more money and less government interference, there should be more leadership shown by the board. ‘I hope the next rector has been selected for their vision of challenging academic education. They should really take the lead right now.’