’No more papering over the cracks’

On 6 April, students, PhDs, lecturers and professors from higher education will be demonstrating against underfunding. 'I am fully convinced of the need for this action, because we can't go on like this any longer,' writes President of the UvA Executive Board Geert ten Dam. For years there has been talk about the structural underfunding of higher education, but for just as many years nothing structural has been done about it. That must change. It is time to strive for a Normal Academic Standard in the Netherlands: adequate funding for universities, with no need for gaps to be filled by overworked teachers and without students ending up the victims, receiving less feedback, less support and fewer contact hours than they are entitled to. An additional €1.1 billion is needed annually. This has not only been established by the universities themselves, but it was also confirmed in an extensive study into the funding of higher education by PWC, commissioned by the Ministry of Education, Culture and Science itself.