Netherlands: Language problems in universities

I usually translate 'allochtoon' as 'immigrant', but in this case I changed to 'minorities' as I thought it might be confusing.

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Secondary education in the Netherlands does not assure colleges and universities that minority students are completely fluent in the Dutch language.

The education inspection now advises higher education to test the language proficiency of minorities despite these diplomas. Where necessary these institutions must give extra lessons in Dutch language and communication. Some training courses do this already, but the inspection thinks that's not enough.

A fifth of universities say in the report that minorities succeed less in their studies due to their background, specifically due to language and communication problems and lack of knowledge of Dutch society.

In HBO schools (Colleges), 40% think that ethnic background has negative influence. Besides language problems there's also poor contact with ethnic Dutch students and trouble with the Dutch learning culture which expects an active attitude from the students.

The inspection concludes in the report, which included 188 institutions and which will be published Friday, that 'barely' 7% of the institutions for scientific education and 17% of colleges, have special police to help minorities in their studies. These are mainly the college in the major cities, where 60% of all minorities study. The institutions which lack such a minority policy say they don't deem it necessary for different reason. Some thought that special attention discourages minority integration.

Some of the institutions think it's not the job of higher education to take care of language fluency and that it should take place in secondary school. The association of universities (VSNU) says it has complete trust in study support for all students. A spokesperson for VSNU says that then have now started a support project aimed at the individual needs of students, but that is not specifically meant for minorities.

Source: Telegraaf (Dutch)

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