Geachte redacties,
In de attach bij deze email ontvangt u de redes die PvdA-kamerlid Frans
Timmermans en bestuursvoorzitter Jo Ritzen van de Universiteit Maastricht
a.s. maandag 6 september zullen uitspreken tijdens de opening van het
academische jaar 2004-2005 van de UM.
Jo Ritzen zal een oproep doen voor een betere Europese oriëntatie van het
hoger onderwijs en het invoeren van een Europese OV-kaart voor studenten,
terwijl Frans Timmermans de belemmeringen voor studenten en universiteiten
in Europa aan de orde zal stellen.
Het academisch jaar van de UM wordt geopend door oud-bondskanselier Helmut
Kohl. Zijn rede is getiteld: Die Zukunft Europa's. De rede zal in gedrukte
vorm dinsdagmorgen beschikbaar zijn.
Op de inhoud van de redes van de heren Ritzen en Timmermans rust een
embargo tot maandagavond 6 september 18.00 uur.
De opening van het Academisch Jaar van de UM vindt plaats in het
congrescentrum MECC, aanvang 16.00 uur. Het thema van de opening is de
uitbreiding van Europa en de rol van de universiteiten in Europa. De UM
wil met deze manifestatie haar Europese en internationale karakter
benadrukken, in de periode dat Nederland het voorzitterschap bekleedt van
de Raad van Europa.
Noot voor de pers:
Meer informatie geeft Marcel Schrijnemaekers, woordvoerder van de UM, via
043-3882671 en 06-21275612. Vertegenwoordigers van de media zijn van harte
uitgenodigd om de opening van het academisch van de UM bij te wonen.
Embargo tot 6 september 18.00 uur
Rede Frans Timmermans ter gelegenheid opening Academisch Jaar Universiteit Maastricht.
What is Europe to us? Bernard-Henri Lévy urges us to stop thinking of Europe as a nation writ large, as 'nation XL', the bigger and better substitute for the nation state, offering a new community to the Dutch, French, Germans or Brits, just bigger, better, stronger, more accomplished. He says, and I could not agree more, that the founding fathers of European integration, when they used the word 'Europe', did not think about a nation, but rather about an anti-nation; they did not have a new country in mind but a remarkable instrument set to weaken in every nation this destructive passion called nationalism. To Lévy, Europe is what causes him to feel slightly less French today than he did yesterday. By saying this, he does not intend to reject his identity, but to stress that Europe does not need its own defining identity based on religion, nationality or God knows what, to exist. By accepting its diversity as its most vital characteristic, Europe can finally free itself of those arrogant dreams of an ideal community, of a superior nation, better than others, that where the root cause of so many bloody conflicts throughout our common history.
Europe cannot be reduced to a federation of nations. That would betray the efforts of all those who have made European integration the biggest peace maker in European history. For us to succeed in accomplishing the dreams of the founding fathers, we should help bring about a Europe that offers, to all nations, a sip of this magic potion that installs a transnational and cosmopolitan spirit in all people, thus creating permanent immunity to the illnesses of excessive nationalism and xenophobia. That is the essence of Europe.
But, "erst kommt dass Fressen, und dann die Moral". For Europe to succeed in its most vital mission, it needs to have dynamic and vibrant societies. Economic growth is essential for us to face the many challenges posed by demographic change, ecological threats, imbalances in the global distribution of wealth - this permanent thorn in our side and cause for so much violence. A successful Europe is a Europe that is open to the world, that has an eye for the needs and wants of others, that does not find the status quo acceptable. We will fail miserably if we think that we can create success for ourselves by ignoring the misery of others and by erected ever higher walls around ourselves to keep this misery at bay.
In many countries, like in the Netherlands, we witness a closing of the European mind. Higher education is a case in point. In his excellent report for the European Council on the need for economic reform, 'Jobs, jobs, jobs', former Prime Minister Wim Kok starts by stressing the need for Europe to perform much better in higher education, research and development. He sees this as a prerequisite for long term economic success. Mitigating wage costs might have a marginal effect on competitiveness, but will never bring Europe the economic upswing it so desperately needs. Our economies need to become increasingly knowledge based.
A statement almost too trivial, even for a politician. 'Knowledge economy' is today's buzz word. But do politicians act in conformity with the need to ensure, as Hamlet said, that we do not leave "That capability and godlike reason to fust in us unused"? If knowledge is our road to prosperity, why then does our government introduce yet more budget cuts on higher education? Why does this government introduce legislation to make it almost impossible for students outside the EU to come to our universities? Why is it made difficult for universities to cooperate with institutions across national borders? Why do we still swamp our universities in rules and regulations, in stead of giving them a margin of trust, so that they can choose to specialize, to integrate transnationally, to innovate their curricula?
As a representative of the opposition, I would be tempted to answer these questions by saying that our leaders are stupid. Alas, it is not that simple. First of all, we need to adapt to a new social environment. Our educational systems are geared - for good reason - towards creating maximum opportunities for maximum numbers. This has served us well in the past. My two grandfathers, both coalminers and talented men, were denied an education simply because they could not afford to pay for it. I am grateful that they lived to see a time were talent and talent alone allowed their grandchildren to follow higher education. Emancipation of people with my social background was made possible by taking wealth or social status out of the equation. Equal opportunities were a result of massive government involvement in setting standards, supplying funds and regulating education even in the smallest of details. Today, the struggle for equal opportunities has changed, but we have failed to adapt our educational system to the new circumstances. I want to briefly zoom in on what has changed and offer my ideas for change in higher education.
First of all, national borders have all but disappeared. This is true in the economy, true in science, increasingly true in research and development. But our educational system still feels the constraints of national borders. More often than not, national legislation still ignores the international context in which universities operate. But for universities to be successful, they need to operate on a European and even global level. They need to attract talent from elsewhere, to form alliances or even joint institutions with universities in other countries, to offer a curriculum that is tailor made for potential students from all over the planet.
But even the best curriculum will attract few students if fees for people from outside the EU are made excessively high by incomprehensible government policy. I fail to understand how the Grzelczyk ruling of the European Court of Justice, aimed at avoiding discrimination on the basis of nationality of an EU national, can be used by the government to introduce discrimination on the basis of nationality for non-EU citizens. If the reason is a financial one, our government is penny wise, pound foolish. Foreign students, given an opportunity to develop their talent, have given us so much in return. I am sure many professors in the audience can testify to this. Our universities and our economy profit greatly from their contribution. But even if they give us nothing back directly, their contribution to the development of their own country is at least as valuable to us, since it helps close the gap between rich and poor and thus contributes to a safer world.
Fees are not the only obstacle put in foreign students' way. It is virtually impossible to get the immigration authorities to grant visa's. Closing our borders has become such a priority that the perverse effects on our higher education are completely overlooked. This year, as a consequence of government policy, of those hundreds of students from non-EU countries who expressed interest in studying here, only a dozen will indeed come to Maastricht University. That is plain stupid, because it hurts our interests. But it is also shameful, because it shows to what extent we have closed our hearts and our minds to the outside world. I call upon my colleagues in other political parties to join us in changing relevant legislation so that government no longer stands in the way of our universities when they try to be attractive for talent from elsewhere.
Secondly, we need to create the right biotope for European higher education. Yes, Erasmus, Socrates and other European programmes are a great success and need to be continued and improved. But these initiatives are aimed at creating mobility of students, what we need to do now is create mobility and flexibility of institutions. Do not get me wrong: my plea is not for a European policy, created by a European bureaucracy, generating even more rules and regulations. On the contrary, I argue that European higher education will be made possible by less government involvement, by less rules. European governments should agree on standards for the end result of education. How these results are to be achieved, should be left to the universities. Give them a licence and let them sort out curricula, it is the end result that counts. European governments should also agree on granting special status to universities that set up transnational cooperation. These 'European Centers for Higher Education' should be allowed to choose according to which national rules they want to operate, with full acceptance of these rules by the other governments. Peer pressure and the need to be attractive to the most talented students, will ensure quality. Universities that fail to perform, will be flushed out. Less government intervention will allow universities to make other choices as well. To specialize in certain fields, to offer extra courses, e.g. in combination with institutions abroad, to create extra possibilities for the exceptionally gifted, to choose to teach in another language. The reason why American and British universities attract more talent from abroad is exactly because these institutions can offer this flexibility - in a language that is a true lingua franca to the younger generation.
Thirdly, we need to offer better opportunities for students and 'one size fits all' no longer guarantees that. We need to completely overhaul the financing of higher education. Obviously, if we give universities more flexibility and set higher standards for ourselves, the cost will go up. The risk then is, that only rich kids will be able to get all the goodies. Never again can social position be the determining factor. So government should ensure equal opportunities by providing the financial means for students to pay for tuition and sustenance. It is up to the student to choose how much he or she is willing to invest in education. The money provided, will have to be paid back, but only if the future salary allows it. Our Central Planning Bureau has calculated that such a system can work if people are prepared to pay 4% of their income back, once they have a job. Surely, this is a better form of solidarity than to ask everyone to finance a system of which relatively few people profit financially.
All these initiatives are no less than a revolution for social democrats. The concept that less government can lead to more emancipation and more equal opportunities, did not sink in easily in my circles. But it is precisely because in the past government helped bring about emancipation that today higher education in Europe can be left more to the institutions and to the students. Friedrich Nietzsche wrote that what makes us Europeans is the capacity to live in different music at the same time. I argue that we need to derive more strength from our capacity to live in different cultures and different languages at the same time. Who can help us do this better, than European universities?
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Embargo tot 6 september 18.00 uur
Opening Academic Year; title "International with local roots"
Jo Ritzen, president Maastricht University
"Used to be the trouble maker
Hated home, I was a sweet heart-breaker
But now I have my dream
I'm so rowdy at eighteen".
Excellencies, ladies and gentlemen, this is the first verse of the lyrics of School Days of the movie Detroit Rock City, by the Runaways, an all female hard-metal rock band.
It is my way to welcome the new students, whether they are eighteen or younger or older, at our university, even though the worlds of Detroit Rock City and our university stand far apart as is evidenced by the sequel of Detroit Rock City.
"School days, school days
I am older now and what will I find but my
School days, school days
I am starting to ship, I am losing my mind".
End of the quote from Detroit Rock City.
Let me reassume you: here in Maastricht to the contrary, we aim at an education which does not make you lose your mind, but rather, makes you find and develop your talents.
I welcome here the secondary school students who still have to make up their minds of what to do after graduation.
I welcome the seasoned Maastricht University students as well as the alumni.
It is a privilege to receive here today a sizeable group of citizens from the city of Maastricht.
We are delighted to have the company of Dutch parliamentarians and Dutch Euro parliamentarians, of the Governor (Queens commissioner) and the members of the Provincial Executive, of the Mayor of the city of Maastricht and some of the Alderman and many friends from the social and business community of this region.
I appreciate the presence of our German and Belgian friends. I welcome my colleagues of the academic and the support staff of the university.
We sadly then remember the active presence at this university of those who died in the past academic year, namely:
Our staff members:
Nelly Plompen
Piety van der Nagel
Nathalie Smeets
Marleen Hertoghs,
Co Greep, the unforgettable founding father of the Medical Faculty
Our students:
Reindert de Vries
Tarkan Dincelek
Harald Verhaeren
José Voets
Each and every one of them has made an important contribution to our academic community. We remember them with fondness and gratitude and share the feelings of their family and friends who remain behind.
A region, any region nowadays -in this era of the knowledge economy- benefits from the presence of a university. It is not just the contribution of that university to employment or the purchasing power it generates through staff and students. But it is the contribution to the culture and to innovation in the region.
In this region the cultural contribution of the university has been widely recognized. In the relatively short time of its existence (now 28 years) the university has greatly spurred the unique combination of a rich cultural heritage with an open, modern, even sometimes cosmopolitan culture. It has made a permanent mark on the city, where nowadays century-old traditions, like the annual transfer of the city key with Carnaval or the septennially held Heiligdomsvaart, go hand in hand with the multitude of languages, which one hears when coming across the Servaas Bridge and which often are related to students, staff or visitors of the university.
The impact of the university on the region both culturally as well as economically will continue to be felt, where the university itself is taking the initiative, within the region South East Netherlands, to actively contribute to economic innovation, in line with the proposals of the Innovation Platform and the Government Memorandum: Peaks in the Delta. This region is spectacular, because of its high intensity in private research: 45% of all private research takes place here. However, this private research is not matched by public research. Despite the presence of the Technical University Eindhoven, the University of Tilburg and the Maastricht University, only 10% of public research spent is in this region, a ratio of one in almost five, while the average ratio in the Netherlands is one to less than two.
I thank my colleagues who have been effective in attractive national and European research funding to this university. They have the full support from the university board in their efforts to realize the innovative potential of our university, in particular when it comes to research where the human being and our society are in the centre of interest.
Within the South East of the Netherlands we have found excellent partners amongst others in the two multinationals DSM and Philips to support our validation of knowledge and our innovation drive. Through synergy and selectivity we can jointly have a greater impact on employment and prosperity in the region.
Our associations with the University of Hasselt within the Transnational University Limburg and with the University of Liege are ways by which the Dutch innovation drive is integrated in the Euregion. We continue to explore the opportunities for concrete cooperation with the RWTH Aachen. This Euregion has one of the highest densities of higher education and research in Europe and has to make use of it.
But the scope of Maastricht University does not end at the borders of the Euregion, nor at the borderlines of Europe. Globalization will continue to carry the Maastricht University on its wings. Globalization means that the costs of bridging distances -whether physically or in terms of getting access to information- are greatly diminished. It means that increasingly the menu of choices for potential students becomes the world's offerings of university courses - while at the same time the labor market for graduates has also become international.
Maastricht University sets the tone for quality university education in the Netherlands and will continue to do so. Problem Based Learning in small groups remains to be our trademark also for masterclasses. Being first or belonging to the top is the command for each and every one of the studies offered. The Europe-wide introduction of the Bachelor-Master structure provides new opportunities, namely to attract students from other universities (national and international) for the master stage. The comparative advantage of Maastricht is at least threefold:
- the nationally and internationally well known high quality of teaching;
- the use of the English language in teaching;
- excellent employment prospects for its alumni as is borne out by ROA date.
Maar laat ik daarmee meteen -en nu in het Nederlands- het volgende daaraan toevoegen:
De Universiteit Maastricht heeft net als alle andere Nederlandse universiteiten, met drie grote, specifieke Nederlandse, nadelen te maken bij het werven van buitenlandse studenten:
- de collegegelden zijn in Nederland (na het verenigd Koninkrijk) de hoogste van Europa;
- de studieduur van de masters degree is vrijwel overal in Europa twee jaar, terwijl in Nederland bij een groot aantal masters opleidingen van een- jarigheid moet worden uitgegaan:
- voor niet-EU-studenten heeft Frans Timmermans al aangegeven dat ons vreemdelingenbeleid wurgend is voor het aantrekken van studenten van buiten de EU
Europa blijft een lokroep die ons aantrekt. "De natie staat heeft haar macht verloren om welvaart en zekerheid te scheppen voor haar burgers, tenzij ze het zoekt in succesvolle internationale verbindingen", zei de onlangs voorgedragen Britse Eurocommissaris, Peter Mandelson in de Den Uyl lezing op 16 maart 2004. Europeanising -niet hetzelfde overigens als homogenisering - is de sleutel naar nieuwe culturele, sociale en economische impulsen. Des te teleurstellender is het om te zien dat onderwijs niet een onderdeel is van het Europese Unie debat of de wetgeving: onderwijs en cultuur zijn de enige twee sectoren, die volledig buiten elk unieverdrag zijn gehouden. Voor de Nederlandse universiteiten die zich internationaal opstellen is het van het allergrootste belang om tot een betere Europese coördinatie van het hoger onderwijsbeleid te komen. Onze ervaringen met de tUL hebben ons juist geleerd, dat de verschillen in nationale wetgevingen een belangrijk struikelblok zijn voor internationale samenwerking van universiteiten. Zou het Nederlandse voorzitterschap van de Europese Unie dit wellicht kunnen agenderen voor de Europese Unie? Kan diezelfde regering wellicht "out of the box" denken en daarbij betrekken dat een Europese OV kaart voor studenten wenselijk zou zijn.
Bij dit begin van het Academisch Jaar is er alle reden om met optimisme vooruit te kijken. Optimisme over de inzet van staf en studenten om maximaal hun idealen te realiseren in een cultuur van ambitie, respect en van open debat. Optimisme over het realiseren van de daadwerkelijke voordelen van samenwerking met het Academisch Ziekenhuis in het MUCH proces. Optimisme over de start van een School of Governance. Optimisme over de vruchten van samenwerking in en buiten de regio met universiteiten en bedrijven.
De uitdagingen zijn ook groot:
- de masteropleidingen moeten zich het komend jaar bewijzen en aantrekkelijk blijken voor grote groepen studenten van binnen de UM en daarbuiten;
- het aandeel vrouwelijke hoogleraren moet omhoog; het is een van de laagste in Nederland, dat - als land - olympisch ook al geen medailles zou halen;
- we willen behoren tot de top drie van Nederland en de top tien van Europa, zowel in onderwijs als in onderzoek. Dat is een ambitie die alleen met veel inspanning en zorgvuldig beleid gerealiseerd zal kunnen worden.
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De eerder geciteerde Peter Mandelson zei in dezelfde Den Uyl lezing dat politici zich niet kunnen permitteren om pessimistisch te zijn. De Universiteit Maastricht meent zich te kunnen permitteren optimistisch te zijn omdat ze het in huis heeft, omdat ze in de afgelopen 28 jaar zo'n geweldig "track record" heeft opgebouwd.
Ich möchte Herrn Dr. Kohl, Altbundeskanzler Deutschlands, sehr herzlich danken für seine vortreffliche Rede zu Beginn des akademischen Jahres an der Universität Maastricht.
Ik dank parlementslid Frans Timmermans voor zijn woorden, Johan Hulshof voor zijn inbreng, Philip Frederiks voor een bijzondere rol, die met verve werd vervuld. Ik dank u allen voor uw aanwezigheid en belangstelling en nodig u van harte uit voor de receptie die in de aangrenzende ruimte, het Trajectum gehouden wordt.
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Universiteit Maastricht