Nibs

The IB Group reacted angrily to this claim. The ISO itself tested how well the IB-Group was able to handle telephone inquiries in English. “We called the IB-Group a couple times in English, asking for information, but the IB-Group personnel we had on the line spoke very little or no English at all,” said Evelien van Roemburg, ISO chairperson. “This cannot be: higher education is increasingly becoming international. If you confront an IB-Group staff member about this, they reply that it’s a Netherlands organization.” The IB-Group plays a key role in Dutch higher education: it facilitates grants and student enrollments, and evaluates foreign diplomas. An IB-Group spokesperson initially reacted angrily to the ISO’s criticisms: “Of course every staff member isn’t capable of answering foreign students in flawless English, but in the departments that have lots of interaction with foreign students, there are always personnel available who can further help these students.”
Degree time

The US National Science Foundation’s report ‘Time to Degree of U.S. Research Doctorate Recipients’, contains data showing that it now takes slightly less time for students to receive their PhD degrees than it did in the mid-90s. In 2003, the median time it took to earn a PhD was 10.1 years, down from the 1996 high of 10.8 years. Engineering graduates took 8.6 years, while those in the physical sciences took 7.9 years. Further, reversing a 2-year decline, foreign graduate students flooded US graduate schools with applications in the winter of 2006. The US Council of Graduate Schools reports that international graduate applications for the 2006-07 academic year rose by 11% over the previous year, with particular increases in applications from China and India. Applications to engineering programs (up 17%) led the way. US university administrators blamed the 2003-05 downturn largely on the tighter immigration policies following the 9/11 terrorist attacks and perceptions that the US was less welcoming to foreigners.
MSN-university

Europe has a couple hundred average universities and 25 average economies, and the Netherlands must take action, claims Dutch magazine Carp. The magazine says that if 3 billion euros is spent on creating a “Harvard on the Ij river” in Amsterdam, the Netherlands will then experience a new ‘Golden Age’. Now that plans for a European Institute of Technology have been watered down to merely a network of universities (or a “half-baked, virtual MSN-university,” as Carp describes it), the Netherlands must take action, according to the magazines’ editor, Casper van Helden, who is also an educationalist at the USA’s University of Michigan. “A maximum of five institutions in the Netherlands must be the research-universities . Eindhoven, Delft, Rotterdam, Utrecht and Amsterdam,” Van Helden argues. “The other universities should focus primarily on education. The funds that are made available for research should be given to the five research institutions and the European Institute of Technology.”
Erasmus grants

The number of Dutch students studying abroad on Erasmus grants will be cut in half, according to Nuffic, the Dutch international education organization. The European Union wants to raise Erasmus grant amounts from 150 to 250 euros. The funds must also be spread across the various EU countries. Nuffic says the total amount of funds for the Netherlands will not be substantially increased, while at the same time, more money must be spent per student. The result: fewer Dutch Erasmus students, Nuffic says.
Van Oosten

TU Delft employee Frank van Oosten (38) died on 15 April. According to the police, Van Oosten’s death resulted from a violent assault. Van Oosten, who worked as a goods receiver at the Faculty of Civil Engineering & Geosciences, had called a friend in Delft at 5:30 in the morning on Good Friday, saying he had been assaulted by two men on bicycles in Delft center. He slept at the friend’s house but later lapsed into a coma. Van Oosten died on Saturday evening.

IB-Group

Foreign students do not fully benefit from the IB-Group’s services, according to the ISO Student Union, because the IB-Group’s personnel aren’t sufficiently proficient in English. The IB Group reacted angrily to this claim. The ISO itself tested how well the IB-Group was able to handle telephone inquiries in English. “We called the IB-Group a couple times in English, asking for information, but the IB-Group personnel we had on the line spoke very little or no English at all,” said Evelien van Roemburg, ISO chairperson. “This cannot be: higher education is increasingly becoming international. If you confront an IB-Group staff member about this, they reply that it’s a Netherlands organization.” The IB-Group plays a key role in Dutch higher education: it facilitates grants and student enrollments, and evaluates foreign diplomas. An IB-Group spokesperson initially reacted angrily to the ISO’s criticisms: “Of course every staff member isn’t capable of answering foreign students in flawless English, but in the departments that have lots of interaction with foreign students, there are always personnel available who can further help these students.”
Degree time

The US National Science Foundation’s report ‘Time to Degree of U.S. Research Doctorate Recipients’, contains data showing that it now takes slightly less time for students to receive their PhD degrees than it did in the mid-90s. In 2003, the median time it took to earn a PhD was 10.1 years, down from the 1996 high of 10.8 years. Engineering graduates took 8.6 years, while those in the physical sciences took 7.9 years. Further, reversing a 2-year decline, foreign graduate students flooded US graduate schools with applications in the winter of 2006. The US Council of Graduate Schools reports that international graduate applications for the 2006-07 academic year rose by 11% over the previous year, with particular increases in applications from China and India. Applications to engineering programs (up 17%) led the way. US university administrators blamed the 2003-05 downturn largely on the tighter immigration policies following the 9/11 terrorist attacks and perceptions that the US was less welcoming to foreigners.
MSN-university

Europe has a couple hundred average universities and 25 average economies, and the Netherlands must take action, claims Dutch magazine Carp. The magazine says that if 3 billion euros is spent on creating a “Harvard on the Ij river” in Amsterdam, the Netherlands will then experience a new ‘Golden Age’. Now that plans for a European Institute of Technology have been watered down to merely a network of universities (or a “half-baked, virtual MSN-university,” as Carp describes it), the Netherlands must take action, according to the magazines’ editor, Casper van Helden, who is also an educationalist at the USA’s University of Michigan. “A maximum of five institutions in the Netherlands must be the research-universities . Eindhoven, Delft, Rotterdam, Utrecht and Amsterdam,” Van Helden argues. “The other universities should focus primarily on education. The funds that are made available for research should be given to the five research institutions and the European Institute of Technology.”
Erasmus grants

The number of Dutch students studying abroad on Erasmus grants will be cut in half, according to Nuffic, the Dutch international education organization. The European Union wants to raise Erasmus grant amounts from 150 to 250 euros. The funds must also be spread across the various EU countries. Nuffic says the total amount of funds for the Netherlands will not be substantially increased, while at the same time, more money must be spent per student. The result: fewer Dutch Erasmus students, Nuffic says.
Van Oosten

TU Delft employee Frank van Oosten (38) died on 15 April. According to the police, Van Oosten’s death resulted from a violent assault. Van Oosten, who worked as a goods receiver at the Faculty of Civil Engineering & Geosciences, had called a friend in Delft at 5:30 in the morning on Good Friday, saying he had been assaulted by two men on bicycles in Delft center. He slept at the friend’s house but later lapsed into a coma. Van Oosten died on Saturday evening.