The four coalition parties have rejected calls to scrap €2 billion of education cuts, despite growing pressure from opposition parties who are threatening to block the plans in the Senate.

Politicians from both left and right-wing parties in opposition addressed around 20,000 students, lecturers and college staff who marched from the Malieveld to the door of the education ministry on Monday to protests against the cuts.

Rob Jetten, leader of the progressive liberal D66 party, said the government was facing a “brick wall” in the upper house if it pressed ahead with its plans, while Joost Eerdmans, the only MP for the hard-right JA21, said education was “the basis of everything”.

“The business community needs innovation,” Eerdmans said. “Employers are crying out for qualified staff. Making cuts in so many areas is so incredibly stupid and destructive.”

“Choose security”

The parties, together with the centre-right Christian Democrats (CDA) and the ChristenUnie, have called for the government to abandon at least €1.3 billion of the planned savings and find the money from elsewhere. The main opposition group, GroenLinks-PvdA, also said it would support a motion to scrap the cuts.

But coalition MPs told parliament during a budget debate on Wednesday that they needed to make the savings to fund spending increases in areas such as defence and security.

VVD MP Clare Martens said the ruling parties were not “dancing on the tables” at the prospect of education cuts. “But we have chosen security,” she said. “There is a war on the borders of Europe. I’m not going to throw out agreements that we’ve made just like that.”

Education leaders have warned that the cuts will lead to job losses and damage the Netherlands’ competitiveness and knowledge economy. “The cuts are so big that they represent the equivalent of two hbo colleges or a large university,” Thijs Roovers of teaching union AOb said this week.

Bruins under pressure

Education minister Eppo Bruins said he understood the “frustration” of the sector, but the cabinet needed to find money to pay for its spending plans elsewhere, including raising spending power for lower and middle earners.

“That means we need to make savings, and party of the savings will fall on education and research,” he said in a statement posted on X, better known as Twitter.

Vandaag zijn er veel studenten en medewerkers van universiteiten en hogescholen in Den Haag gaan protesteren. Lees hieronder mijn reactie. ⤵️ pic.twitter.com/w7jXNIGXq7

— Eppo Bruins (@MinisterOCW) November 25, 2024

Coalition MPs said it was not up to them to work out how to get the plans through the senate, where the combined opposition has enough votes to defeat the government. A similar alliance forced the government to abolish plans to increase VAT on books, theatre ticket and sport last month.

“We mustn’t confuse the roles,” said Martens. “I hope the minister is engaging with the Senate.”

The PVV, the largest party in the coalition, defended the cuts, arguing that education consumed too much public money through subsidies. “There are 70,000 education experts and 40,000 education companies and that needs to come down,” said PVV MP Patrick van der Hoeff.

The government’s plans include cutting €1 billion from the higher education budget, including scrapping funding for young researchers. It also wants to limit the number of courses taught in English in order to stem the rising number of international students.

The proposed cuts come as the Netherlands’ universities dropped out of the top 50 in the latest Times Higher Education ranking. Just five remain in the top 100, the lowest number since 2012.