NOS Helen Kret
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NOS News•today, 07:33
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At almost half of the universities, fewer students came to lectures in recent months compared to before corona. This is evident from a tour of the NOS. The universities hope that next academic year the lecture halls will be fuller.
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Due to corona, students in higher education have mainly followed distance education in recent years. In February, the maximum group size in education expired and all students could come to the university.
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Still, some of the students stayed away. Lectures were in many cases also offered online after the lifting of the restrictive measures. Some of the students continued to use this out of convenience or necessity.
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‘Social process’
Radboud University emphasizes the importance of physical education. According to the university, studying is a social process in which students learn from and through each other. Physical education contributes to this, in addition to online education.
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The universities that indicate that fewer students are physically coming to lectures aim to improve this coming academic year.
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Tilburg University hopes that mixed education will encourage students to come to campus. In addition to the online education that is offered, education on campus must be activating and in-depth.
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The option for lecturers to only offer a course physically is a way of getting more students to return at Utrecht University. It is not a general policy at the educational institution.
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Other image
Not all universities recognize that the lecture benches remain partly empty. For example, the phenomenon hardly ever occurs at the Technical University in Delft. A lot of practical training is offered at the institution, with a high turnout and in some cases also compulsory.
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At the VU University Amsterdam, they see that scaling down online education means that students are able to find their way back to the campus. Lecturers also make an effort to make students aware of the added value of education on campus.
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It is unclear whether the reduced attendance of students has an influence on the study results.
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