Nieuws - 29 september 2005
Study programmes get good review
The nine Wageningen study programmes recently evaluated by the review committee for the Life Sciences and Natural Resources come out well. The committee’s one slight criticism was that in some programmes there was no clear cohesion between the different courses.
The criticism made of some of the programmes concerns the cohesion between courses and the effectiveness of the organisation. Committee chair, Professor Rietje van Dam: ‘The student-staff ratio in Wageningen is excellent and the quality is fine at the moment, but we wonder whether this will remain so if programmes start to grow. We missed cohesion within programmes.’ Brascamp’s response is that this is confirmation of the choice to merge the four separate educational institutes into one central institute
Van Dam warned against too much emphasis on an individual approach in the face of increasing international student numbers. ‘Wageningen has a very heterogeneous group of students. At present many problems are solved individually, but it is questionable whether this can be maintained in the long run.’ Van Dam herself is an Open University professor and has a lot of experience with distance learning. She points to the advantages of ICT. ‘You can develop good instruments for remedial teaching; by using ICT for example you can help students to come up to standard even before they have arrived here.’
Higher education programmes are reviewed every six years by an external committee. Since 2004, programmes that are positively evaluated receive an accreditation, which entitles both institution and students to government finance. The Life Sciences and Natural Resources cluster is relatively new and consists solely of programmes available at Wageningen University. It is therefore impossible to compare them with programmes at other universities. / JH