NRTO and State Secretary for Higher Education sign historic agreement.

For the first time, the Dutch government has signed an agreement with the non-funded Universities in the Netherlands regarding their participation in the development and implementation of State Secretary Halbe Zijlstra’s Higher Education Strategic paper that was published last summer.

The agreement covers a range of issues including a new accreditation system, to be implemented in the coming year, and the opportunities that non-funded Universities can provide the Netherlands government in their implementation of a more ‘lean and mean’ approach to the funding for higher education.

Wittenborg played an important role in the review process of the agreement, signed last Friday (13th January 2012) ensuring that an agreement was made that the Dutch government would promote funded and non-funded accredited institutions in the same way, and ensure that all communication both in the Netherlands and internationally about Dutch Universities would be the same, regardless of central funding or not. This includes ensuring that schools such as Wittenborg are also evenly represented on lists of institutions in world wide databases in which accredited Dutch Universities are mentioned.

WUP 18/01/2012

The full (Dutch) press release can be read here: 

http://www.wittenborg.nl/nrto-sluit-hoofdlijnenakkoord-met-staatssecretaris-zijlstra.htm