The SP and PVV parties in the Dutch Lower House were worried about how Dutch students would fare - they might be ousted by foreigners.
Although a slight increase in the number of foreign students in Leiden for the quota programme [admission for these programmes is arranged by a lottery] Medicine is discernable, a university spokesman said that Dutch students need not fear that they might be ousted.
“For instance: this year, the number of foreign students rose from five to eight, but that’s a very small difference when set against a total of 315.”
The increase of almost forty per cent in the number of foreign students at the Medical Faculty looks spectacular because the numbers are so small. In absolute figures, it means very little.
A little more than 2.5 per cent of the total number of first-year Medical students at Leiden are not from the Netherlands.
There again, a huge increase at the Medical Faculty was not to be expected. “It’s a Dutch programme with strict language requirements”, explains the spokesman, “and usually we only attract Belgians and Germans, and the Germans often spend all their holidays cramming Dutch.”
At Psychology, another quota programme, there is no noticeable influx of foreigners either. “We don’t offer an English language Bachelor’s programme”, says Anna Zandvliet, Secretary of the Psychology Institute’s Board, “so we only admit students who speak good Dutch. I don’t know the precise figures, but there really hasn’t been any enormous increase.” VB