Untitled Document
"Foreign PhD Students Have a Harder Time"
Late Dissertation Means Loss of Income
for Dutch PhD Students
The scrapping of redundancy pay for PhD students in
2001 has led to a complete loss of income for people who don't
finish their thesis within the official four-year period. Thousands
of students in the Netherlands are in trouble now unemployment
benefits are not replacing civil service redundancy pay as was
first believed. At TU/e only about 15 per cent of PhD students
finish their theses in four years, nationally the figure is 12
per cent.
Foreign PhD students are often in less trouble, but sometimes
in even more trouble than their Dutch colleagues. Foreign students
lose their residency permits if their contracts expire, and are
sometimes forced to leave the country. Until now, some foreign
students were eligible for redundancy pay or unemployment benefits
under certain conditions. TU/e often extends contracts by three
months to a year to give foreign PhD students the chance to finish
their theses.
This is more difficult with scholarships. One student at Electrical
Engineering had to go home to Brazil before finishing his PhD
when his scholarship ended, and his colleagues haven't heard from
him since. Another graduate student from Africa was given an extension
of his scholarship and should now receive his PhD at the end of
the year.
Collective Extension
Dutch PhD student organisation LAIOO has asked minister Hermans
to make funds available to universities for a collective extension
of PhD contracts by a full year. They also want changes in the
funding system itself. At the moment TU/e receives a bonus of
about 100,000 guilders for every finished thesis. This disappears
into the university's lump sum financing. LAIOO has therefore
asked the minister to give professors some sort of incentive to
make sure students finish their dissertations on time. Until now,
PhD students who were writing their theses after their four-year
contract were almost always given redundancy pay, so the consequences
of finishing late were limited for both the university and the
PhD student.
Executive Board member Te Beest told Cursor that supervision of
PhD students at TU/e is quite adequate and no changes are anticipated.
This opinion is not undisputed by PhD students themselves. Stories
about people working on their own for years are not unusual.
LAIOO has also asked minister Hermans to provide solutions for
foreign PhD students who find themselves with no income, an unfinished
dissertation and a residency status of 'illegal alien' or 'tourist'.
Three-year PhD
According to BIA head Leo Robben, foreign PhD students often
have a harder time than their Dutch colleagues. "In general,
I think foreign PhD students don't finish faster than the Dutch.
It's often more difficult for them to get their research started,
due to communication problems. Some projects even include an introduction
year because of this problem. But we can't use this as a general
solution because it takes only three years to get a PhD at a foreign
graduate school."
The University of Amsterdam announced this week that it is switching
to a three-year system with improved pay and closer supervision
for PhD students. The term 'AIO' will be replaced by 'junior researcher'.
This is in connection with the introduction of the Anglo-Saxon
Bachelor/Master system. Other Dutch universities may conceivably
follow UvA's lead. Te Beest howover has declared the TU/e will
not follow this system.
Chairman of AIO-overleg at TU/e Willem-Paul Brinkman says his
organisation wants a real solution to the problem, not some compromise.
"It's in the university's interest that both foreign and
Dutch students finish their PhDs. Many of us can already get jobs
with outside companies. Why should we stay if that gets us into
trouble financially? Or even with the police in the case of foreign
students?"
Next week Cursor talks to foreign fourth year PhD students about
graduating on time./.
