"Promoting diversity policies in higher education: Aims of inclusive education programs in the Netherlands"

Yagmur, K. (Speaker)

Activity: Talk or presentation types › Invited talk › Scientific

Description

Like all other Western European countries, the Netherlands is experiencing a strong demographic change in its population structure. The native population is not growing and to be able to maintain economic growth and sustain the current welfare, the country needs new immigrants each year. In the 1970’s and 80’s, immigrant workers were identified as ‘guest workers’ but they have their fourth-generation descendants now. This brings its challenges as well as opportunities. Educational institutions must find ways to deal with linguistic diversity. Monolingual approaches to education and training does not always achieve good outcomes for multilingual school populations. Majority of students coming from an immigration heritage are mostly streamed into lower schooling tracks, such as vocational education. Besides, the school failure among students from an immigration background is larger compared to native Dutch students. As a consequence, unemployment among immigrants is larger and the country cannot benefit from the diversity of talents available in the country. In my talk, I am going to address these societally crucial issues in two parts. In the first part of my talk, I will explain the causes of lower school achievement among students from an immigration heritage by presenting some statistical data. Because the problems in primary and secondary education are not addressed effectively, the inflow of students into higher education institutions is limited. In the second part of my talk, in line with inclusive education goals, I will present the measures taken by higher education institutions and the Dutch Science Foundation to empower youth coming from an immigration heritage. Policy makers at the Ministry of Education and Dutch Science Foundation realized that for growth and sustainability, Dutch higher education needs to make use of available diversity of talents. I will explain the aims and results of the MOSAIC program empowering young people from an immigration heritage. In the last part of my talk, I will briefly talk about NUFFIC, the Dutch organization for internationalization in education. NUFFIC promotes international cooperation to provide support and guidance for students from diverse backgrounds. Finally, I will present some information on how the Open University of the Netherlands (OUNL) supports individuals from immigrant backgrounds. By means of inclusive policies, OUNL commits resources to make higher education accessible for people coming from diverse backgrounds.

Period	4 Dec 2024
Event title	“Open Higher Education beyond Borders and Identities”
Event type	Conference
Location	Chiba, JapanShow on map
Degree of Recognition	International

Keywords

Inclusive Education
Dutch higher education
Mosaic Program of NWO

Documents & Links

In 1983, The Open University of Japan (OUJ) was established with the mission of being an open university where anyone who wants to learn can learn anytime, anywhere, and began broadcasting programs in 1985. The use of television broadcasting was central to OUJ, as in the cases of other open universities in the world. It also symbolized the innovative education style at that time, making it possible for students to take courses no matter where they were as long as a television set was available. Over the next 40 years, while broadcast programs became available to many people, the advent of the Internet enabled information to be delivered around the world, and international movement of people became more active. The education systems designed according to the conditions of broadcasting back then need to be reshaped, whereas the broadcasting education style has become rather obsolete. Under such circumstances it is vital for OUJ to redefine the beneficiaries of its service. In order to fulfill its innate mission, OUJ needs to actively provide education to people living outside Japan and those with non-Japanese backgrounds. They have so far been beyond the scope of OUJ. At this symposium, new projects for expanding OUJ's scope will be discussed, drawing on the experiences and expertise of two pioneering institutions in this field, Universitas Terbuka in Indonesia and Tilburg University in the Netherlands.