Executive Board receives declaration forms
- Dozens of students paid unjust school costs.
- Executive Board member Jan Willem Meinsma is checking if a costless alternative was offered to students.
The student members of the Central Participation Council (CMR), which recently established that certain studies had unjustly made certain school costs mandatory, have received 52 declaration forms. These were handed to board members Jan Willem Meinsma and Henk Hagoort during the CMR meeting.
The student body of the CMR submitted a claim at the end of the previous school year to reclaim the mandatory school costs which were unjustly paid. Mandatory school costs are not in compliance with the law concerning Higher Education and Scientific Research. This law states that students may not be charged mandatory costs on top of the regular school costs. This was unknown to many study programmes. According to the chairman of the student body, Boy Rolloos, it regularly occurs that study programmes in the Examination Regulations(OER) make the costs of excursions, books or programmes mandatory, while the study should offer free alternatives. “In total there are 52 students that satisfy the criteria for our claim. Our estimate is that the declarations will be around 6000 euros.”
Noteworthy is the fact that about thirty percent of the forms come from students from the domain Business, Media and Law. Specifically, these come from Small Business and Retail Management studies. They are declaring about 120 Euros per person. Students had to pay for the license for a game, a trip to Lisbon and a program of the foundation Stichting Jonge Honden, which makes it possible for students to be self-employed in education.
On the form, students had to indicate which teacher they had asked for information about a free alternative. Jan Willem Meinsma now wants to check if the teacher concerned really did not offer a free alternative.
If study programmes should not stick to the law again this year, the student body of the CMR will once more stake a claim on the same grounds. Boy Rolloos: “Teachers have to communicate with students better when it comes to offering a free alternative. Also, the study programmes should make sure that these laws are put into the OER”. (SP)
