Education

Architecture plans to downsize students

The faculty of Architecture wants to deny 250 students the opportunity to study architecture each year, applying a numerus fixus. Students are furious.

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Each year, architecture enrolls 650 new students, making it the TU’s largest faculty. But so many students, cries the TU’s executive board, demand too much energy from architecture’s professors and guest lecturers. The staff is aging, there might be a teacher shortage, and a new curriculum is being devised, partly in response to a critical report by the examination committee.

The solution for the faculty’s woes, according to TU’s executive board, is to: Downsize, corporate-style. From 650 students a year to 400. The number of students applying to study architecture isn’t expected to decrease, so the faculty’s will now only accept the 400 ‘best’ students – that is, those students with the best high school grades.

This numerus fixus comes into effect next year, provided the Minister of Education agrees. Both the university and faculty’s student councils are outraged by this proposal, which, for unknown reasons, has simply been passed down rather than supported with proper argumentation, which is vital for those who oppose the plan.

Architecture’s student council and union don’t believe this numerus fixus will solve the faculty’s problems, arguing that if aging and the attractions of the commercial sector are threatening teacher shortages, the faculty should instead turn it’s attention to the labour-intensive educational system.

The students, moreover, adamantly reject a selection process based solely on high school grades: ”Grades alone don’t make a talented architect. More skills than simply those tested for in high school go into making a good architect.”

The faculty of Architecture wants to deny 250 students the opportunity to study architecture each year, applying a numerus fixus. Students are furious.

Each year, architecture enrolls 650 new students, making it the TU’s largest faculty. But so many students, cries the TU’s executive board, demand too much energy from architecture’s professors and guest lecturers. The staff is aging, there might be a teacher shortage, and a new curriculum is being devised, partly in response to a critical report by the examination committee.

The solution for the faculty’s woes, according to TU’s executive board, is to: Downsize, corporate-style. From 650 students a year to 400. The number of students applying to study architecture isn’t expected to decrease, so the faculty’s will now only accept the 400 ‘best’ students – that is, those students with the best high school grades.

This numerus fixus comes into effect next year, provided the Minister of Education agrees. Both the university and faculty’s student councils are outraged by this proposal, which, for unknown reasons, has simply been passed down rather than supported with proper argumentation, which is vital for those who oppose the plan.

Architecture’s student council and union don’t believe this numerus fixus will solve the faculty’s problems, arguing that if aging and the attractions of the commercial sector are threatening teacher shortages, the faculty should instead turn it’s attention to the labour-intensive educational system.

The students, moreover, adamantly reject a selection process based solely on high school grades: ”Grades alone don’t make a talented architect. More skills than simply those tested for in high school go into making a good architect.”

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