Nearly 300,000 students in the Netherlands are being educated to do a job which will be taken over by robots or computers within the next 20 years, according to a new report by accountants group Deloitte.

In particular, many courses in the vocational training sector will become obsolete, the researchers say. In total, the jobs of 174,000 vocational college students are at risk, particularly those in the administration, financial and technical services.

By contrast, hbo colleges are teaching 84,000 potentially ‘useless’ students. University students are better off. Only 28,000 of them are likely to be replaced by IT.

Accountancy, economics, hotel management, logistics, law, management and journalism are among the at-risk subjects at colleges and universities, the report says.

At the same time, however, automation will create new jobs, Deloitte says. For example, in the retail sector, buyers will be replaced by programmers and online community managers.