Utrecht university is scrapping its bachelor courses in Arabic, Portuguese and theology, according to a letter from the dean to the humanities faculty on Tuesday.

Wiljan van den Akker writes that it is no longer responsible to keep courses going that attract very few students, reports the NRC on Tuesday.
‘We will still offer Arabic as a modern language but anyone wanting to study 19th century Arabic texts will have to go to Leiden,’ he writes.
Differentiation
Scrapping some subjects is part of junior education minister Halbe Zijlstra’s policy of forcing universities to clearly differentiate between themselves. In future they must stick to what they do best and scrap the rest, the minister says
The technology-based universities of Delft, Eindhoven and Twente are also to streamline their their courses and some subjects currently included will be scrapped, the paper says.
MPs are worried about the development. They fear Zijlstra’s plans will be detrimental to educational quality, the NRC reports.