©Guy Ackermans
Together with the Student Staff Council, the board wants to see how much additional capacity the extended schedule gives in teaching buildings and what the impact is on teaching quality. To do this, the board will be drawing up a monitoring procedure, it said in a letter to the council on 5 April. The board will also evaluate the extended schedule in 2019 rather than 2020.
The Executive Board hopes these promises will lessen the Student Staff Council’s criticism and lack of confidence in the extended schedule. Last month, the council was considering instigating a dispute procedure to stop the implementation. The council was unhappy with the independent external study of the capacity gains from the extended teaching schedule. The new timetable will come into effect in September to enable WUR to cope with growing student numbers. The timetable has shorter periods for lectures, starts earlier in the morning and continues into the early evening.
The Student Staff Council discussed the letter from the Executive Board on Wednesday afternoon 11 April, after this magazine went to press. The council’s response can be found at resource-online.nl.