People celebrate the Netherlands' traditional King's Day at the Dam Square in front of the Royal Palace in Amsterdam on April 27, 2017. (Xinhua/Sylvia Lederer)
by Maria Vasileiou
THE HAGUE, May 23 (Xinhua) -- More international students are opting to study at Dutch universities, allured by degree courses taught entirely in English, as Brexit threatens the international appeal of Britain's higher education.
"Applications from international students for both undergraduate and graduate programs have increased significantly this year," said Zoe den Boer, senior advisor of international marketing and student recruitment at Maastricht University. "Uncertainties relating to Brexit have influenced students, who are looking more actively into options offered elsewhere in English."
Maastricht University has experienced an increase of 35 percent in applications for its masters degrees and 10 percent for undergraduate courses from international students.
"The increase could be the result of how Brexit is influencing future students' choices," said de Boer, though she cautioned that figures of enrolment might change since not all students who apply end up enrolling.
The trend is not limited to Maastricht University, which is regarded as the most international higher education institution in the Netherlands with about half of its students and 40 percent of academic staff coming from abroad.
Total demand for bachelor programs at Dutch universities by international students has increased by 18 percent to 23,900 applications for the next academic year, according to VSNU, the association of universities in the Netherlands.
At the same time, in Britain, applications of EU students have switched from increases of five to seven percent per year to a 7-percent decline, while non-EU student applications have stagnated, according to the UK universities admissions service UCAS.
"Studying in the UK has become less attractive," said Adri Meijdam, executive director of the BSc program in international business administration at the Rotterdam School of Management, which is part of Erasmus University. He stated concerns over higher tuition fees and visa regulation constraints as the main reasons.
At Erasmus University, applications for bachelor degrees increased by over 500 from last year. At Rotterdam School of Management, in particular, some 2,300 students, most of whom are coming from abroad, want to study international business administration during the next academic year, but there are only 575 places.
"Applications for the next academic year point to continuing growth in the number of international students aiming to study at Dutch universities," said Freddy Weima, director-general at Nuffic, a Dutch organization for the internalization of education.
In 2016, 112,000 foreign students enrolled in Dutch higher education institutes, representing two percent of international students worldwide, a Nuffic report showed. More than 81,000 are enrolled in a full degree program, the remainder is for shorter stays such as Erasmus+, the European Union's (EU) student exchange program.
Among those in full degree program, Germans form the largest group with 22,000 students, though the number has been decreasing over the past five years. China is the second largest country of origin with 4,347 students, followed by Italy (3,347), Belgium (2,976), Britain (2,778) and Greece (2,370).
International students are attracted to the Netherlands by its good quality education, large number of English-language courses, relatively low tuition fees and cost of living, and the good listing of Dutch universities on international rankings, according to Weima.
"Further internationalization of the universities is part of the national policy," Weima added. This means more programs taught in English, both at the bachelor and masters level, and more attention given to intercultural skills within the classroom, also in the fields of technology and science.
Already in engineering "there has been an exponential growth in international student influx" according to Nuffic, a trend taking the Netherlands closer to the target of 40 percent of all students choosing technical and science fields by 2020. Currently, the largest groups of foreign students in engineering comes from Germany (1,445) and China (1,225).
In addition, the Dutch government approved a bill in February which allows Dutch universities to offer full degree programs abroad.
Another form of internationalization might be adopted by Leiden University if it approves a proposal put forward by two of its academia staff members. Leiden mathematics professors Hendrik Lenstra and Peter Stevenhagen recently suggested expanding the institution's 2015 to 2020 internationalization plan to include a more European education model and also adopting German as a language of instruction from September 2018.
