NIHA conference 'COMMON FUTURE
Your Excellency, Ladies and Gentlemen, Distinguished Guests,
I would like to extend a warm welcome to you all and express my appreciation for your attendance. I would particularly like to welcome Mr Özcan, President of Yök, His Excellency Mr Kurpershoek, Ambassador of the Netherlands, Mr Celik from TUBA, Mr Zürcher, member of the NIHA Advisory Council, Mr den Exter, Director of NIHA, and all our other distinguished guests.
Ladies and gentlemen,
Relations between the Netherlands and Turkey have a very long history. As early as 1582 an Ottoman trading terminal (known in Dutch as the “Turkse Stapel”) was opened in Antwerp – that at that time was part of the Netherlands. When the city fell into the hands of the Spanish in 1585, the terminal moved further north to towns like Enkhuizen and Amsterdam.
This happened during the 80 Years’ War referred to as the Dutch Revolt. In the early years of the Revolt, a popular slogan was “Better Turkish than Papist” (Liever Turks dan paaps).
In this way the Dutch “Watergeuzen”, literally Sea Beggars (sea-faring rebels), made it clear that they preferred to be connected to the non-Christian Turks rather than to the Spanish king. This was not exactly a compliment: in the opinion of the gueux, it was a matter of choosing the lesser of two evils.
The people of Europe had long been scared of the Turks. Not surprising, given that in 1529 Turkish armies had been at the gates of Vienna – and they had not come bearing gifts. The West trembled in fear of the mighty empire in the East.
Ladies and Gentlemen,
A great deal has changed since those times, across the world, in the Netherlands and Turkey. For relations between Turkey and the Netherlands, the most important change was, of course, that Turkish guest workers came to the Netherlands. And they were later joined by their wives and children.
At the time of the arrival of the first guest workers, for most of the Dutch, Turkey was still a strange, far-away land, while today baklava is on the shelves of our country’s largest department stores, just one shelf removed from Dutch liquorice. Furthermore, every year a million Dutch go on holiday to Turkey.
We have obviously got to know one another much better.
But it is still necessary to strengthen and extend the ties between the Dutch and Turkish peoples due to the demands of internationalisation and an increasingly international orientation. And because immigration and integration do not by definition flow seamlessly into one another. And this means that some Dutch young people with a foreign, including Turkish, background are in danger of being forced onto the fringes of our society. This is something we want to prevent. And to do so, we need to build bridges.
Through co-operation, for example, which we will be discussing today. Young people need to be set good examples and interesting exchange programmes can aid this end.
That brings me to the 2007 Book Week Complimentary Gift written by Geert Mak; the novel “De brug” (The Bridge). The Bridge is not just about a bridge, it actually forms a bridge between Turkey and the Netherlands as the first Book Week Gift ever to be translated into Turkish.
In the book, the Galata Bridge across the Golden Horn is a metaphor for our world in the making.
And that is what today is about: our world in the making, our common future in which the youth of today will be able to develop to the full as employees or entrepreneurs. In this future, the business community will take on an even more international character. Many companies will be taken over by foreign investors. Take for instance the Yapi Kredi Bank Nederland N.V., that is made up of the Turkish Koç Group and the Dutch UniCredit.
Such an example shows that thinking about internationalisation is a must rather than a luxury.
Simply put, we have to look beyond our own borders if we want to create interest among and ties with pupils, students and researchers. That is the reason for this NIHA conference where you – as I have read in the programme – will be discussing co-operation between institutions, the mobility of students and researchers, as well as common research and education programmes.
Currently, almost 3 million students worldwide are studying abroad. The expectation is that by 2020, this figure will be over 7 million. My Ministry encourages our students to follow a study, or part of a programme, abroad. And this does not just apply to students in higher education. I would like to make internationalisation a stronger component of the vocational education and training sector too. In this respect, work is being done on a European qualifications framework to enable European programmes to be compared with one another. So that if you follow part of a course of study in the Netherlands you could, for example, continue your studies in France.
We are doing our best to allow young people to gain work experience abroad. For example, grants for students in higher education are continued if they spend time studying abroad. Grants for students in the vocational education and training sector are currently only continued if they travel to a so-called bordering country, but we are working on expanding this arrangement.
To facilitate internationalisation in vocational education, we have established the Internationalisation of Vocational Education Programme. This programme provides, for example, on-site counselling for students during an internship abroad.
Even if we wanted to, we could never co-operate with the whole world. The Ministry of Education, Culture and Science has therefore selected a number of priority countries. Turkey is one of those countries. Turkey is an interesting partner because the country has so much to offer: a young population that is eager to learn and high-quality universities. And the bond between Turkey and the Netherlands is even more valuable to both countries, because over 350,000 people living in the Netherlands have Turkish roots.
These descendants of guest workers are performing increasingly better in the Dutch education system. They transfer to university programmes more and more often. In 2005, 6% of graduates had a non-Western, foreign background; of the young people currently studying at the Vrije Universiteit, 17% has such a background.
The Vrije Universiteit, incidentally, has a remarkably large number of foreign students. As the national daily the Volkskrant wrote: the most Christian university in the Netherlands attracts the largest number of Islamic students. It almost seems as if the descendants of the gueux and the Turks finally did join forces, over 400 years after the Revolt.
But of course this is not the case. Fortunately, the enormous differences between Catholics and Protestants have disappeared. In my party, the successors of the papists and gueux have even joined together like brothers to form a new whole.
But this did not happen from one day to the next. And it certainly was not a given. What was most needed, was what I call the internationalisation of the mind. The realisation that your world is not an island. And learning to view your own impressions and views critically.
Cansu Genc, a Dutch medical student born in Turkey, last year discovered that her view of the land of her birth was limited. She therefore went to Turkey with a group of Dutch and Turkish-Dutch travellers in the wake of Crown Prince Alexander and Princess Maxima.
While talking to Turkish students, a whole new world was opened up for her. She realised that Turkish culture was much more varied than she had always believed. And this was confirmed when she read The Bridge by Geert Mak. I would like to quote what Cansu said in the Dutch daily the NRC Handelsblad: “Turkish culture is a patchwork of identities in which people distinguish themselves from each other right down to the village in which they were born, this is something that both Turkish and Dutch people can learn from the book.”
That brings me back to internationalisation, more specifically to co-operation between Dutch and Turkish education institutions. How beneficial this is for our young people. And how it can lead to win-win situations from which both Turkey and the Netherlands can benefit.
For example, an internship in the Netherlands for Turkish students or for Turkish-Dutch students in Turkey could be eye-openers that these students would carry with them for the rest of their lives. Just like the story of Cansu.
Now Cansu is a talented medical student with a wonderful future ahead of her.
For some young people with ethnic-minority backgrounds, the future is often less secure. To a certain degree they are trapped between two cultures and this can cause them problems.
It can also be a good thing for such vulnerable people to become familiar with the country of origin of their parents. For example, the co-operation between the Mondriaan College and the Lycée in Istanbul, that is specifically aimed at training these young people to become city hosts. Young people who will be acting as hosts in 2010 for the countless foreign visitors who come to Istanbul when it becomes Cultural Capital of Europe.
Also interesting are the exchanges in the fields of Tourism, Recreation and General Services in which the Regional Training Centre in Twente is engaged.
I have read that this mainly involves Dutch students with a Turkish background who desire to expand their professional skills further in Turkey. Professionals who are just starting out and who, because of their background, have a slight head start on others.
Ladies and Gentlemen,
These are only two examples of co-operation but of course you will hear of many more good examples of this kind.
I hope that you will be inspired by what you hear. And that you will desire to become that bridge-builder, working on good relations between the Netherlands and Turkey so that pupils and students will broaden their horizons and learn to cope with diversity.
This is not only good for the international business community but also good for the world as a whole.
What better place to spread this message than Turkey? After all, we in the Netherlands have three international borders, but Turkey has Istanbul, the only city in the world that is built on two continents.
A country where our common history and our common future, meet. Where East and West come together and are prepared to bridge each other’s differences.
Ladies and Gentlemen,
I would like to close by pulling something else out of the hat. Actually, I have two surprises. First of all, a premier. A short film that has never been screened elsewhere.
The NIHA has made a short film about itself to provide students in the Netherlands with information about the institute and about studying in Turkey.
This short film supports the activities of the Study in Holland Desk, my second surprise. Together with the Nuffic, the NIHA presents a desk to provide Turkish students who want to study in Holland with the necessary information and support. Also Dutch students who want to study in Turkey can contact this desk.
But let us start with watching the film.
[ na het filmpje]
I would now like to invite Ms. Funda Demir, who will be active in the Study in Holland desk in both Istanbul and Ankara, to launch the Study in Holland desk together with me, by revealing the study in Holland logo, wich officially will be launched by NUFFIC in the International Branding Campaign of the Netherlands Higher Education on the 29th of January in Utrecht.
I wish you a constructive and successful conference!