Early next month, the Lower House will discuss a legislative change which should make transnational education, which includes the campus in Yantai, possible. In preparation for the debate, the parties submitted their questions to education minister Jet Bussemaker on Tuesday afternoon. There are four pages of Parliamentary questions.
The questions are not new. They have been asked numerous times during University Council meetings, faculty councils, and staff meetings at the university. How will academic freedom in China be guaranteed? Will the Yantai campus receive funding from Dutch tax money? Can it be guaranteed that education and research in Groningen does not suffer from this foreign adventure? And what are the consequences of the project failing, or a military coup in China?
Most answers can be found at the employee portal at the RUG site and have been discussed by the Board of Directors many times.
Doubts
The VVD (People’s Party for Freedom and Democracy) is a proponent of the RUG’s plans in China. However, D66 (Democrats ‘66), PVV (Freedom Party), and the SP (Socialist Party) are not in favour. The CDA, which had not publicly taken a stand on the Yantai plans, is having doubts. According to the Christian Democrats, a university’s primary job is to provide education in the Netherlands. Furthermore, the party feels that setting up a foreign campus for purely financial or marketing reasons should be prevented.
The minister has two weeks to respond to all the questions. The debate concerning the legislative change and the Yantai campus is on the agenda for the week of 13 February.
‘Irresponsible’
There is a lot riding on that debate. Not only would it be impossible for universities to provide complete study programmes abroad without the legislative change, but the Faculty of Mathematics and Natural Sciences (FMNS) also refuses to participate without the new law.
The faculty is supposed to provide the majority of the China programmes. But in a letter that the board members sent to the faculty council, the faculty board stated that they feel that is irresponsible under the current law.
The faculty want the Board of Directors, rather than the faculty dean, to be responsible for the programmes in China. That way, should anything go wrong in Yantai, the Groningen programmes are protected. The faculty also worries that staff will have to work considerably harder if FMNS becomes responsible for the Chinese programmes.
Unrestricted internet access?
While the Lower House parties are asking the minister about the possibility of internet access without government censorship, the Chinese government has announced that they will block all VPN connections.
The VPN services ensure internet traffic is encrypted and re-routed to allow users access to websites and online services that are blocked by a country. The University of New York in Shanghai, among others, makes use of this virtual private network to allow students and staff access to Google Apps for Education, for example.
According to RUG spokesperson Gernant Deekens, the VPN blocking will not pose a problem for the future campus in Yantai. ‘The RUG will not be making use of a VPN connection’, he says. ‘Staff and students will have unrestricted internet access on campus. That is a deal we have with the Chinese partners: it’s been affirmed in the agreement.’