“I’ve been mulling over Belgium,
Because everyone there laughs.
I’ve been mulling over Belgium,
Because the language is so soft.”

So sang the Dutch pop group Het Goede Doel in 1982, in a very odd song called “België”. And in fact, more and more young Dutch people are mulling over their neighbour to the south – for the purposes of higher education.

Students from the Netherlands are coming to Flanders in ever-growing numbers, and fee changes in Dutch higher education that will be implemented this year could lead to an even bigger increase. The Rutte government is increasing the cost of education, as well as implementing a loan system instead of its traditional grants. It will also charge more to both graduate and undergrad students who take longer than the allotted time to complete their degrees.

Kris Van Dyck, a member of the Flemish parliament, explained the situation to the education committee. The “tough policy”, he said, means that “the study cost for a second Master’s could reach as high as €14,000. … penalties for study delays could push the price of tuition alone up to €5,000. That is also the reason why more students from the Netherlands are making their way to Flanders.”

In Flanders, tuition for a year of university – both undergrad and Master’s – is €564.30.

Over the last five years, the number of Dutch students at Antwerp University has gone up 117%; at the University of Leuven (KUL) 105%; at the Free University of Brussels (VUB) 76% and at Ghent University 25%. According to the Dutch office for international cooperation in higher education, last year 4,327 students crossed the border to study in Belgium. Of those, about 3,000 were enrolled in the five Dutch-speaking universities, including the University of Hasselt. That’s compared to a total student population over the five institutions of more than 90,000.

Leuven attracts the highest number of Dutch students, with about 1,400 this year, followed by Antwerp with 913 and the VUB with 411. “The large influx that was expected as a result of certain measures that were taken in the Netherlands has not really happened,” says Kristiaan Versluys, director of studies at UGhent.

A similar response comes from Nele Custers of the student relations office of the VUB. “At this point, we have absolutely no problem with the numbers of Dutch students. The VUB has sufficient capacity to accept these students and provide them with a quality education. We even recruit in the Netherlands at education fairs in Rotterdam and Eindhoven and at the Master’s fair in Utrecht.”

Flemish education minister Pascal Smet agrees that “the figures are not such that we have to panic or take drastic measures. I want to make it clear that the quality of Flemish higher education is not and cannot be dependent on a small minority of Dutch students who come here to follow courses,” he says.

Quality, not quantity, is problem

“If there is a problem – and there is a problem – it’s more because most of the [Dutch] freshmen are not successful in the same way as students from Flanders,” says Ludo Melis, vice-rector in charge of education policy at KUL. “There are multiple reasons for that. It could be that the best students prefer to remain in their own country. The other possibility is that there’s a huge difference in school culture between Flanders and the Netherlands, and bridging that gap is not easy for young people. When we look at the success rates of students coming in from the Netherlands, there is no difference at Master’s level, but for 18-year-old Bachelor students, there is a very striking difference.”

UGhent’s Versluys agrees. “That is a remarkable phenomenon,” she says. “Their success rate is lower than that of the average Flemish student, but I think that has to do with the fact that the Dutch students who come to Flanders haven’t found a spot in the Netherlands".

He points to the low success rate for Dutch students in veterinary medicine. “The ones who don’t get into Utrecht come to us, and the drop-out rate is very high; only about 10% make it through the first year. For Flemish students, that rate is 30 to 35%.” (Ghent is the only Flemish university to offer Bachelor’s and Master’s degrees in veterinary medicine.)

Antwerp University, meanwhile, “has also recorded below average scores for Dutch students,” confirmed a spokesperson. “From figures for last year, it appears that just under half give up during their Bachelor studies. For Flemish students, the figure is around one in four”.

Post-graduate students, on the other hand, are a different story. “Dutch Master’s students are enriching for us,” according to the spokesperson. “They often have a fresh outlook, and they’re more forthcoming than [Flemish] students. We could learn a lot from them here in Antwerp.”

Schools at border attracting Dutch children

It isn’t only universities that are experiencing a growth in the numbers of Dutch imports. The same thing is happening in primary and secondary schools in parts of Flanders close to the Dutch border.

An article in Flemish daily De Morgen early last year claimed that nearly 22,000 Dutch children were attending Flemish schools. That led to a rapid nuance of the situation from the Flemish education ministry, pointing out that, while the figure was accurate, more than 16,000 of those children, or 73%, were from Dutch families living in Flanders.

The growth is especially noticeable in primary schools: from 4,235 in 2002 to 8,329 in 2009. Parents in the Dutch border region are increasingly attracted to Flemish schools, and indeed some have been known to move there specifically for the purpose.

The reasons are indeed compelling. Children in Flanders can attend school from the age of two-and-a-half years, compared to four years in the Netherlands. Flemish basisscholen (“basis schools”) typically comprise a pre-school and primary school. The choice of a Flemish school therefore allows Dutch parents the advantage of 18 months of free child care.

The Flemish school system is also highly regarded for its serious approach to learning and stricter discipline than schools in the Netherlands, whose more progressive methods are often seen by Dutch parents as being lax and too child-centred. They see an educational advantage in Flemish schools, where the children can still be taught in their own language.

Finally, the Flemish government’s policy of capping the amount of money schools can ask parents to pay annually for extra activities, like school trips, is appealing. That total is currently set at €25 to €35 for pre-schoolers and €40 to €65 for primary pupils, depending on age.

For Flanders, this interest from the Dutch – whether they live here or not – does not yet seem to be a problem, although some schools now report up to 50% Dutch children in their classes. Speaking to education departments of border towns like Dilsen-Stokkem, Brasschaat, Essen and Hamont-Achel, we were unable to find anyone who thought the problem was out of control. With only 5,665 children of all ages attending schools along a border of some 360 kilometres, the schools are not overcrowded.

While increasing numbers of Dutch schoolchildren are not now a problem for Flemish schools, it is of concern to the Dutch. “We don’t want our schools standing half empty because the children are all in Flanders,” says Frank Van Driessche, alderman for education in Hulst, Zeeland province. “We are investigating what the attraction of Belgian schools is and what we can do to make our schools just as successful.”