Although compared to other Dutch universities Utrecht University has the best on-time graduation rates (74% graduates within four years), there is still room for improvement. This is why the University has decided to innovate various aspects of its educational model.
Everyone knows them: students who find out after six months that they have chosen the wrong degree and then have to wait until they can transfer to another programme. Or students who never seem to graduate …
Although compared to other Dutch universities Utrecht University has the best on-time graduation rates (74% graduates within four years), there is still room for improvement. This is why the University has decided to innovate various aspects of its educational model.
What is going to change?
In the short run, nothing will change. The first changes will become noticeable from September 2012 at the earliest. Rector Bert van der Zwaan: “Perhaps we will organise the academic calendar differently or perhaps we will offer more courses in conjunction with other programmes in the first year of a Bachelor’s degree. But we also want to challenge students more, to ask more of them. Studying at a university is hard work! We also think that we can give students better help in choosing the right degree. This may mean that in an application process we will give more emphasis to screening on the basis of motivation and competencies and that we want to strengthen the personal tutor system. All these things have not been decided yet; they are directions of thinking that the Utrecht Educational Model 3.0 Project will turn into concrete plans in the months to come.”
Students to have a say as well
Students too will be involved in thinking up plans, promises Van der Zwaan. The Utrecht Educational Model 3.0 Project will have a number of sub-projects in which also students participate. In addition, the Rector wants to check the ideas with a wider audience. “You can think of themed breakfast sessions and an online suggestion box where students and staff can post their responses to the plans of the sub-project groups and perhaps offer their own ideas.”
Are those changes really necessary?
“Yes, they are. We want to and have to create a more efficient educational process,” says the Rector. “For a number of reasons. For one thing, it is becoming more and more expensive for students to go to university. That is why it is so much more important to choose the right programme straight away and to graduate within the set timeframes. Secondly, government funds per student are shrinking, which means that we have to organise the educational process even more cleverly, without having to compromise the current high quality. And we also want to meet teachers’ concerns about the high work pressure they experience and we plan to make appreciation for their teaching more visible.”
More information
News about the content of and progress on Utrecht Educational Model 3.0 will be regularly published on www.uu.nl/students and on the faculty-based student websites.