'A worrying trend': Dutch universities rebel against plan to limit English courses

When Juanita Marín turned 18, she decided she wanted to study economics outside her native Colombia and had her eyes set on Europe.

She had spent a summer in Germany and wanted to go back, but when she had a look at their university degrees in English she realised they did not score highly in the rankings.

However, the Dutch ones did.

She found Tilburg University in the Netherlands which offered good programmes entirely in English and a high ranking in economics.

This combination helped her make up her mind. The country welcomed her alongside thousands of other international students -- 115,000 in 2022 alone -- which accounted for 35% of the total student body.

That number has been on the rise over the last decade, but now the Dutch government is trying to curb it. 

Netherlands Education Minister, Robbert Dijkgraaf has plans to limit the percentage of classes taught by universities in foreign languages.

The aim is to reduce the amount of English content of standard bachelor’s degrees to only one-third of course credits.

This limit comes after universities were asked last December to stop actively recruiting foreign students. The minister justified the decision by stating that internationalisation leads to an overload of teaching staff and a lack of accommodation for students.

He also claimed that increasing the number of courses taught in Dutch would encourage foreign students to learn the language and stay.

For Marín this is not the case: "If I had to study my degree in Dutch, I wouldn't have chosen the Netherlands. I studied French at school, so my options would be Belgium or France," she tells Euronews.

"The academic burden in itself is very high and, as foreigners, we are at a disadvantage, so they should facilitate