‘It is definitely a new idea that hasn’t been considered before,’ says the UReka member. ‘So far it has been received positively. The University of Twente already offers a lot of language courses and the minor programme should not be a substitution for those. However, I tried to follow the Dutch courses and I soon realized that it was too much for me to do a full-time study and a Dutch course at the same time. Which is why we started looking for possibilities of how to learn Dutch alongside your study.’
‘We think that a minor is a smart solution, because it could be incorporated into your study and because it is optional – which is very important, learning Dutch needs to remain optional. But we do believe it would certainly be beneficial for international students to learn Dutch, because even though English is the official language at the UT, that is not the case in the rest of the region. The minor could therefore better prepare students for the job market and it could contribute to decreasing the brain drain in Twente. After the Dutch minor, we are thinking about offering a minor of academic English for students.’
UReka is currently investigating if developing a Dutch minor at the UT is feasible. One of the challenges they foresee is the accreditation of such a programme and ensuring it fits within the university’s educational model. ‘We are looking into that and once we have a clearer picture, we will officially present it as an unsolicited advice to the Executive Board. We aim to do so before the end of this year.’
