The flexibility of the "harde knip"

Our assignment for this week is to come up with (at least 5) different kind of flexibilities in a learning environment. Because I do not want to sum up just 5 different kind of flexibilities, I decided to write those according a case. This makes the assignment more interesting for me, and it makes it possible to show that only one adaption has influence on the flexibility on several levels. The case I want to describe, is called the “harde knip”, which is an idea from our Dutch minister of education, Ronald Plasterk. In order to fulfil this assignment, I’ll make use of key-concepts (in italics) mentioned in Collis & Moonen (2001). When necessary, I’ll adjust these concepts to the level of curriculum.

At the moment, the so called “harde knip” (I think it will be translated as ‘catch without exception’ or ‘fixed catch’) is an hot issue in the Dutch politic about the Dutch University education. The idea of the “harde knip” is to disallow students from the master program who have not finished their bachelor program yet, even within the same faculty. In the current situation, most of the faculties allow their own bachelor students to follow their master program, when these students have just two or three bachelor-courses not yet finished. .

At the ‘faculty level’, this “harde knip” will lead to inflexibility of their choice of entry requirements for their own students. When this “harde knip” is introduced in the whole nation, the conditions of participation are fixed for every faculty, and the faculties will not be able anymore to allow any of their bachelor students before these students finish their bachelor program. In order to be fully flexible in this case, the faculties should decide their own conditions of participation, and only allow students they really want to teach, and prohibit other students, even if they have the ‘required’ bachelor-degree. .

Also at ‘student level’, this “harde knip” will lead to inflexibility in their time. While they are now able to continue their study, even with some courses not yet finished, with the “harde knip” they have to wait another year before entrance to the master program. In the ideal situation, the students will be able to choose their own pace, and may decide to follow some master courses through their study-time, even if they have not finished all the courses from their bachelor program.

The Dutch minister of Education defends these inflexibilities with the argument that all students will be able to switch from university more easily. Because the entry requirements will be all the same for every faculty with the same kind of program (for example ‘psychology’), the students will be more flexible in choosing their own preferred masters program, including their different topics of the courses. In the ideal situation, the students will be able to choose not only between master programmes with their own topics, but is able to design their own master, en decide which courses they want to follow. For example, they will choose to follow one or two courses in the master program of Twente University, and continue their master with some courses at Maastricht University and finish their master program at Nijmegen University. .

In order to meet the inflexibility of the students, the Dutch minister of education wants the universities to offer two intakes (start of the master program) every year for every student who finished their bachelor program. Therefore, the students are able to choose between two moments when they will enter the master program and the students will not delay one full year, but ‘just’ a half year. In the ideal situation, the students will be able to choose their own preferred moment of intake, so they are able to start their master program just when they want to start. .

It is also preferable for those students –and even for students who are already involved in a master program- if the faculty decide to offer a course twice a year (or even more). In that case, the students -who are enrolling in the second intake- are able to follow the courses in the same order as their fellow students who enrolled a half year ago. This is preferable when a course is building further on the same knowledge, which the students acquired in a previous course. This gives the students also an opportunity to choose the order (time) of their program. Unfortunately –as already mentioned-, this decision makes it difficult for the faculty to build up a master program with follow-up courses, where a course build further upon the knowledge acquired in a previous course….

As you can see, changes in a curriculum can add (some) flexibility at one level but may also reduce the flexibility at other level(s). Which flexibility is more preferable is difficult to say, but it should be a hard job (if not impossible) to design a nation-wide curriculum which is flexible in all their facets. At which level(s) (the politics, the faculty of the students) these decisions are made will also influence the flexibility of decision-making at other levels….