Dutch scholarship system in the making

Will PhD students receive salary for their work or just a scholarship in the future? The Dutch parliament is divided about the plan of Education State Secretary Halbe Zijlstra to introduce a scholarship system.

Zijlstra wants more differentiation in the promotion system. He wants to change the law so that universities can hire PhDs on a student scholarship status. This way a distinction can be made between PhD candidates with a teaching appointment and scholarship students (with student status) who follow (additional) education. It would help to increase the number of PhD students.

Dutch Christian Democrats (CDA) party is against the plan. “I’m really wondering if this leads to more people doing research”, member of parliament Sander de Rouwe said during the discussion of the Strategic Agenda for Higher Education in the Parliamentary Committee for Education.

Also Jesse Klaver (Groen Links) has serious doubts: “Will the possibility to work with scholarship students not displace paid PhDs? Can, under the new system, PhD students still support a family and take a PhD?”

Carola Schouten (Christian Union) is also very concerned. “PhD candidates should have a good position concerning labor law. A division between the candidates, where one group teaches and the other do not, and a difference in research performance, should not be created.  We do not support this measure.”

Secretary Halbe Zijlstra waved the objections aside. “There are only three countries in the world where PhD scholarship holders are not present! The rest of the world has PhD scholarship students. It’s not that PhD candidates will be massively replaced by scholarship students. On the contrary, one gets the opportunity to also work with grantees. It can result, according our estimation, in 400 additional PhD programs. The universities can work out the new system themselves. But let’s be clear: it has always been the goal to have more PhD candidates. This allows us to do achieve it and it has nothing to do with taking advantage of PhD students.”

The Dutch parliament will continue to discuss the higher education strategic plan soon. Possibly, opponents will submit amendments or motions. In a later stage, the Secretary of State with introduce a bill. If it get enough votes, it will pass The House. [MW/transl. YV]