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Change in Study Programmes: The Low Countries

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Abstract

Both in the Netherlands and Flanders, the lack of efficiency in the supply of programmes in the university sectors was considered a policy problem in the late 1980s and beginning of the 1990s. This article explores how the institutional context of the university sector (including the governmental steering model and the conflicting interests regarding the programme supply) played a role in the responses regarding the programme supply of four universities in the two higher education systems. The cases show that the institutional context provided mixed incentives, leading to both predictable and unpredictable responses.

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Notes

  1. Advanced academic courses (third cycle courses) are courses following after the basic academic courses and are designed to broaden the knowledge gained from a basic academic course (complementary courses) or orientated towards specialization in a given area of study (specialist courses). In general they take 1 year of study.

  2. Each basic course is split into one or two cycles, each comprising 2–4 years of study, depending on the subject.

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Huisman, J., Verhoeven, J. & De Wit, K. Change in Study Programmes: The Low Countries. High Educ Policy 17, 269–285 (2004). https://doi.org/10.1057/palgrave.hep.8300055

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