Affordable sports for students will stay, but cultural institutions face uncertainty
Student sports will remain affordable for students. This was made clear by Education Minister Bruins on Wednesday afternoon during a debate in the House of Representatives. The situation remains unclear for cultural institutions such as Crea.
Good news for student sports: students will continue to receive discounts at sports clubs and sports facilities at their colleges and universities. This was clarified Wednesdayafternoon by Minister Bruins of Education, Culture and Science during a debate in the House of Representatives. Like the rest of the House of Representatives, Bruins also finds it “undesirable that sport is so expensive”, writes the NOS.
Student organisations had previously feared that Minister Bruins wanted to end public funding for university sports and cultural activities, such as Crea and the University Sports Centre (USC). The minister wants to tighten the policy: according to legal rules, sports facilities and cultural activities fall under “private activities” that universities and colleges are not allowed to fund from education funds. This would lead to market distortion, according to the minister, because commercial companies also offer these facilities.
In practice, the legal rules have been in place for more than twenty years and the funding of higher education for student sports has been tolerated all this time. According to Bruins, the confusion arose because he wanted to make it clear that for years there had been a “grey area”. Now he wants to make an explicit exception for student sports. However, the minister says that it must still be clearly justified why an exception should apply specifically to sports and not to cheaper food or cultural activities.
Crea
What Bruins intends to do with the subsidy for cultural institutions such as Crea therefore remains unclear after the debate. Crea director Dennis van Galen, who followed the debate yesterday, had actually expected the minister to make an exception for both sport and culture. Van Galen: “The same arguments for making an exception for sport also apply to culture: meeting each other, mental and social well-being and personal development. The minister has already said that Studium Generale (lectures, debates and creative courses offered by universities under the heading of general development, ed.) is part of the universities. That is exactly what Crea does.”
Despite the uncertainty, Van Galen remains optimistic. “Sport has managed to set up a strong lobby in a very short time and is now getting an exception. We are working on the same thing for culture. Members of parliament from Groen-Links and D66 also asked questions about culture yesterday.”
Van Galen also knows he has the support of outgoing Executive Board member Jan Lintsen, who has already said he thinks the minister’s plans are nonsense and wants to continue supporting Crea and USC financially. Van Galen will discuss the issue with him again this afternoon.
