The English language skills of lecturers and students at Dutch universities, where courses are increasingly in English, are not up to standard, according to an article in this week’s HP/De Tijd magazine.

Students tell the magazine that the English of some lecturers is so bad they cannot follow their classes. And the students themselves do not dare to ask questions in English for fear of sounding foolish.
It is up to individual universities to monitor the quality of English-language education and no formal action can be taken against lecturers who do not make the grade, the magazine says.
The way English has been introduced at Dutch universities (up to 70% of master courses are in English) was not properly thought out, says HP/De Tijd. ‘If we do not invest in the quality of English…our university education will suffer irreversibly.’