Students demand clarity on fines for slow students

Student organisations and youth union bodies have called on the government to come clean about its plans to make slow students pay higher fees, now the Christian Democrats have said they will do away with the fine.


CDA leader Sybrand van Haersma Buma said during an election debate on Tuesday evening his party no longer supports charging students who take more than four years to complete their degree an extra €3,000 in fees a year.
The new measure is due to come into effect on September 1 and will apply to new and current students.
Budget
The right wing VVD, which forms the current minority government with the CDA, wants to press ahead with the fines. Scrapping them would leave a gap in the government’s finances, VVD MP Klaas Dijkhoff told television current affairs show Nieuwsuur.
‘We have made agreements and that is what we will stick to. We support the legislation in its current form,’ Dijkhoff said.
Student bodies say they want parliament to be recalled to debate the issue. ‘If such a far-reaching measure no longer has the support of a majority in parliament, then there should be a vote on it,’ the organisations said in a joint statement.
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