Why English-language education in psychology ís a good idea
Since last month, there has been a nationwide revolt among psychologists, who have turned en masse against the proposal by the umbrella organisation Universities of the Netherlands to abolish the English-language bachelor’s programme in psychology. The plan is shrouded in misunderstandings, according to Han van der Maas and Marie Deserno.
This cabinet wants to radically reduce the international influx into higher education by banning English-language bachelor’s programmes. Psychology now seems to be the first victim of this policy. The idea is that these students only cost us money, displace Dutch students and overload the housing market. These are three misconceptions.
Firstly, because the Netherlands desperately needs all this young talent in the labour market. Even if only a minority of these students stay, this will bring us more economic benefits than it costs. Secondly, international students raise the quality of Dutch higher education to a higher level. Without them, there is a risk of deterioration: fewer programmes, less choice, less innovation. And thirdly, the housing crisis is not caused by foreign students. Most of them rent in the expensive private sector – those who blame them are choosing an easy scapegoat and turning a blind eye to the real problems.
The Netherlands as a knowledge economy
The universities, led by the umbrella organisation Universities of the Netherlands (UNL), are trying to stay in control. Their proposal: use psychology programmes in the Randstad as bargaining chips. With this appeasement, they hope to persuade the minister to leave other programmes alone. This strategy is not entirely incomprehensible. The combination of demographic decline (fewer Dutch students), record budget cuts and the scaling back of international enrolment is deadly for universities. The looming crisis could set the Dutch academic system back decades – and this is a major risk for the Netherlands as a knowledge economy.
But in the UNL’s plan, this fate will only apply to psychology. Naturally, this is being received with a mixture of sympathy and relief in other disciplines. Outside the academic world, support for the government’s policy prevails, and now also for the UNL’s line. We are training too many psychologists, is the thinking, and there is no reason to offer the programme in English. We must invest primarily in disciplines that produce ‘smart products’, in the words of the minister, when he was not yet a minister.
Numbers
Let’s first take a look at the numbers. There is a persistent misunderstanding that psychology programmes have abused internationalisation to grow unchecked. This is incorrect; psychology has long been self-regulating, among other things through a numerus clausus. The UvA bachelor’s programme, for example, is taught in English, but the clinical master’s programmes are taught in Dutch to ensure alignment with the Dutch labour market.
Moreover, the international students that the now left NSC leader Pieter Omtzigt was so concerned about mainly come from Europe (students from outside the EU pay the full tuition fees). But the Netherlands is reaping the benefits of Europe. It is precisely the European freedoms – free movement of students and scientists – that are of great benefit to the Netherlands. For example, Dutch researchers receive prestigious ERC grants twice as often as the number two in Europe.
We are also not training people for unemployment, as is often claimed, which is another misunderstanding. The labour market for psychologists has not always been favourable, but it is no less favourable than other non-natural science disciplines. And right now, the labour market is actually favourable. This applies not only to psychologists, but to all newcomers to the labour market, and that is not going to change any time soon. There is a global silent battle for young talent. Japan, China, Europe and the US are all trying to compensate for their shrinking working population with foreign talent.
No vocational training to become a therapist
Another misconception is that university programmes are vocational training programmes. This is incorrect; they are primarily academic programmes. The formula for success of academic programmes is that of science itself: the returns are often indirect, unexpected and unintended. Fundamental research regularly leads to applications that no one could have foreseen. The same applies to academic education. A psychology student who graduates today could become a therapist tomorrow, but just as easily a data analyst at Statistics Netherlands, the director of an educational start-up, an HR advisor or a professor of business administration – academic education pays off. Becoming a therapist is just one of many options for psychology students. Two-thirds of students choose a non-clinical master’s degree focused on subjects such as training, coaching, consultancy, sports, culture, social influence, brain and cognition research or data science.
Psychology is therefore much broader than many people think. We study, among other things, the functioning and dysfunctioning of perception, memory, language, decisions, attitudes, intelligence, cooperation, conflict and emotions. Part of our research concerns classic clinical topics such as phobias, depression, addiction and personality disorders. But there are also plenty of misconceptions about clinical psychology itself. Our current minister once referred to ‘the couch’ when talking about psychology, apparently assuming that psychology is still in the psychoanalytic era. That is about as accurate as thinking that physicists play with toy cars on slopes and chemists try to make gold from lead, sulphur and salt.
The minister wants to invest in disciplines that create ‘smart products’. The smart product of the last decade is AI. AI has two sources: computer science and psychological research into human thinking. Modern AI is partly based on long-term cognitive psychological research into neural networks and reinforcement learning. Geoffrey Hinton, who laid the foundations for this field, was trained as a cognitive psychologist for good reason and even received the Nobel Prize in Physics for his work. But just as with the Nobel Prize (Economics) for Daniel Kahneman, a psychologist by training, these achievements are not attributed to psychology. The misconception that psychology cannot be a ‘hard’ science is persistent.
Waiting lists
The other reason to question the emphasis on ‘smart products’ is just as relevant. Is this society really waiting for even more technology? We are certainly not blind to the importance of investing in technological solutions to climate problems, disease, transport and traffic, housing, et cetera. But on the other hand, we must not be blind to the other side of the coin. We work closely with these ‘technological’ researchers because they too emphasise that such solutions only have a chance of success if they are accompanied by behavioural change and a cultural shift. Our prosperity has multiplied in a hundred years, but our well-being has only grown to a limited extent. The figures speak for themselves: hundreds of thousands of people are on waiting lists for mental health care, millions of Dutch people use antidepressants and opiates with all the associated side effects, and roughly one in five employees in the Netherlands suffers from burnout symptoms.
At the same time, this government is cutting back on mental health care. This is strange because psychological help is cost-effective. Evidence-based therapies work. Prevention works. The social damage caused by untreated psychological problems is enormous. Once problems such as long-term burnout, serious gambling addiction or criminality resulting from mental disorders have escalated, the costs are incalculable. To illustrate: a huge proportion of Dutch prisoners suffer from psychological problems, ranging from mental retardation to psychopathology. This government's solution – tougher penalties, even for serious psychological dysfunction – costs much more than the entire budget cuts for Dutch psychology can yield. Minister Coenradie alone is asking for hundreds of millions for new prisons.
Scientific psychology is developing rapidly. Eighty years of research into human and artificial intelligence has led to the ultimate smart products that our minister is talking about. And that is astonishingly fast on the scientific timescale. But we should not underestimate progress in other areas either. This often involves contributions to interdisciplinary research areas such as neuroscience (e.g. spatial navigation) and statistics, but also deep insights into the workings of memory, which are highly relevant to legal practice.
Consider clinical practice: a century ago, we locked up psychiatric patients in institutions that resembled prisons. Treatments ranged from lobotomy and endless psychoanalysis sessions for the very wealthy to electroshock therapy without anaesthetic, cold baths and prolonged isolation. Recovery was rare; the aim was often simply to keep patients out of sight of society.
Remarkable top position
The Netherlands plays a major role in these developments. The impact of Dutch research in terms of citations is exceptional and the international reputation of Dutch research in psychology is high. We don’t like to boast about rankings in the Netherlands, but the top position of psychology in international rankings is remarkable. The internationalisation of research and education has proven crucial in this regard. Talent development in the Netherlands is at a high international level and education is also among the best in the world. It is rarely mentioned that the Dutch are number one when it comes to proficiency in English as a second language. This is crucial for our international competitive position and is partly due to our English-language education.
Psychology has to deal with enormous social expectations to deliver in social services, education and, in fact, in every crisis in the Netherlands. At the same time, psychology as a science is still in full development. Scientific education and research are inextricably linked at the university. Now a catastrophe is looming. The Netherlands needs international talent, including in psychology, and an important prerequisite for this is English-language education.
Han van der Maas and Marie Deserno are researchers at the Department of Psychology at the University of Amsterdam.
