An increasing number of Dutch universities are rejecting prospective master’s degree students who don’t average scores of at least seven in their bachelor’s degree subjects, the Volkskrant says on Wednesdy.

Rotterdam School of Management, for example, has introduced a minimum bachelor pass rate for all subjects, the paper says.

Students who wish to study politics at a higher level need an average score of seven in their bachelor degree papers, to write a motivational letter and to pass a test in English to win a place. The same applies to politics in Leiden and is being introduced for archaeology master’s degrees.

The universities are able to introduce tougher entrance requirements because they no longer have to automatically admit students for master’s degrees at the same faculty where they studied for their bachelor’s.

Education minister Jet Bussemaker hopes this will lead to the ‘right student being at the right place’ and reduce the drop-out rate.

Standards

‘We attract good students from all over the world,’ a spokesman for Erasmus University told the paper.

‘They [foreign students] need to have an average grade of seven or pass the entrance test,’ the spokesman said. ‘We are now applying this to our own students. We are hoping to improve the quality of education further.’

‘Some of our bachelor’s students are not good enough for our master’s,’ he told the paper. ‘The bachelor-master system does not mean that everyone will meet the standards to take a master’s degree. We have to get used to that here in the Netherlands and it is completely normal abroad.’