The debate during the Expertise Conference on Excellence in Apeldoorn
resulted in food for thought last Thursday. The majority of the people
present disagreed with the statement that a minimum of ten per cent of
the students should take part in an honours programme .
Under the supervision of Gijs Weenink of the Debate Academy, the debates
took place in the style of the Lower House: every visitor of the
expertise conference joined the debate and had to choose a side. This
caused a lively debate. A number of statements were discussed in a
tearing rush, such as the target percentage of ten per cent of excellent
students.
At this moment, 1.5 per cent of the students of universities of applied
sciences follow an honours
programme, at universities, this percentage is five per cent. Saxion
itself strives for a percentage of eight in 2014. “An ambition of ten
per cent of excellent students still means that ninety per cent is not
excellent”, said Lammert Tiesenga of the Hanzehogeschool. “We have to
strive for as many students as possible in
honours programmes. That is why the possibility of starting a direction
of studies late should be offered.”
Saxion teachers Jan de Vlaming and Frans Eijkelhof disagreed with their
colleague from Groningen. “Excellence should not necessarily be in an
honours programme,
it is also possible outside of it”, said De Vlaming. And Frans Eijkelhof
added: “I do not want to be pinned down to percentages and be haunted
by them. It is not possible that nine per cent of your students are
excellent, but that the others are failures.”
Rien de Vos from the Amsterdam Hogeschool disagreed with the two
Saxionners. “A percentage like that states an ambition and makes
testing it possible. A target percentage can be an important motive.”
Other statements in the discussed included: ‘Motivation is more
important than high grades for admission to an honours
programme’ (majority agreed), ‘Students with a diploma of pre-university
education should by obliged to follow an honours programme’ (majority
disagreed) and
‘Students should be able to send bad teachers packing’ (majority agreed)