The Dutch government is considering rolling back university degrees in English because EU students are a cost and degrees in Dutch "can improve quality because the majority of students would follow a degree in their native language"
scienceguide.nl/2020/04/kabine…
scienceguide.nl/2020/04/kabine…
It's interesting how this discussion almost never involves the idea that being attractive for international *teachers and researchers* can improve quality.
It is pretty clear that the possibility to teach in English and the existence of degrees in English is a (if not the) major factor of attraction of Dutch academia for international scholars.
This is part of discussions where massive cuts to Dutch higher education are being considered.
The whole political economy of the Dutch higher education sector is that academics are mostly driven towards research (in English) while voters care mostly about education and what they think are the needs of the Dutch labour market (competence in Dutch).
The reason why academics are driven towards research in English is that the whole incentive structure (e.g for promotion) rewards research (especially grants) and not education. This incentive structure is shaped by the government.
And now the government comes and says English in higher education is bad.
In 2018 an association sued 2 universities for "illegally" using English as their main language.
And there are books like this one being published.
