The student at Utrecht University, Ralf Brouwers, wonders why his peers at those institutions should be relieved of the BSA requirements during the coronavirus crisis, while research university students must still meet the stringent minimums. He feels the research universities’ arguments for maintaining the BSA are faulty.

The institutions do not expect first-year students to encounter any significant study delays, as there were hardly any delays last spring. The universities of applied sciences have adopted a more lenient stance by giving first-year students an additional year to meet the BSA minimum.

Practical lessons

Ralf Brouwers notes that “a lot of our practical lessons, which are key elements in our programme, have been dropped”. The rest of the curriculum is also suffering compared to pre-corona circumstances, he says, which is why the research universities should also scrap the binding study recommendation.

However, the petition will have to garner significantly more signatures if it is to cause administrators at research universities to budge. For the time being, they are unmoved by calls for postponing (let alone scrapping) the BSA.

Last week, the research universities assured the Ministry of Education that they would monitor the situation. Individual degree programmes may decide to make their own adjustments to the BSA requirement. Students who find themselves facing a study delay due to unforeseen circumstances can always submit an individual request for postponement or suspension of the requirement.