Until recently Dutch students were eligible to receive a so-called 'basisbeurs', a monthly grant to finance their studies. In September 2015 the Dutch government has ceased this allowance and has transformed it into a loan. The funds that are released as a result of this change will be allocated to the universities for investments in improving the quality of education.
The Executive Board of the University has decided to allocate this money to faculties based on the number of students involved in the loan system, i.e. full-time Dutch enrolments. For RSM this implies a total amount of €1.180K for quick wins in 2016 and €790K for structural investments in 2016 and in 2017. Separate investment budgets for the BSc and MSc programmes were calculated based on the number of enrolled students.
The RSM Dean of Education, Eric Waarts, has drafted a proposal for the allocation of these funds after discussions with the Faculty Council, the Programme Committees, and the Academic Directors of the MSc programmes. In a letter to the Faculty Council dated 22 December 2015 he proposed to "spend a large chunk of the ‘quick win’ funds in fundamentally restructuring large scale BSc and MSc courses using blended, flipped & e-learning concepts that make learning more effective without substantial growth in faculty FTE. Training the teachers will be an integral part of that exercise. It will need some, but limited structural funds for smaller group size, and intensifying feedback to students. Another part of the SVM funds is proposed to be devoted to creating an international sandwich-year option and running an honours programme for BSc students. For MSc it is proposed to provide each of our masters with an annual innovation budget that enable masters to implement innovative teaching materials, provide extra incentives for teachers to redevelop courses, to hire teaching support when necessary, etc."
The Faculty Council discussed the proposal during its meeting of 14 January 2016 and approved of the suggestions in a letter to the Dean of Education dated 20 January 2016.