Improving study success and diversity in Dutch higher education using performance agreements

Abstract

More and more governments have started to introduce elements of performance in the funding mechanisms for their higher education institutions. An example is a performance agreement: a contract signed between the funding authority and an individual higher education provider. In the Netherlands, a policy experiment involving performance agreements was concluded in 2016. We analyse whether the agreements actually have helped achieve the goals of improving student completion rates, educational quality and increasing the diversity in educational offerings. We present some indicators relating to these goals and discuss what can be learned from the performance agreements experiment in the Netherlands.

Performance agreements to ensure societal legitimacy in the social housing sector; an embedded case study of implementation in the Netherlands

“…The latter two organisation have a big disadvantage going into the performance agreement formulation negotiations. In line with the claim by Jongbloed et al (2019) that implementation of performance agreements depends a great deal on situational context, the present study shows that introduction of local performance agreements in the social housing sector runs more smoothly in small-sized municipalities than in large-sized complex urban cities. Additionally, the study provided insight in how the governance of social housing works in The Netherlands.…”

“…Moreover, no financial penalty can be inflicted in case of insufficient performance. Third, whereas performance agreements are expected to increase in perceived accountability, transparency and credibility (Jongbloed et al 2019) the present study showed that this does not hold in all cases. At least in the Rotterdam case this claim could not be confirmed.…”

“…First, in the present case performance the focus is on a set of local actors who negotiate about formulating local performance agreements. It is not about actual implementation (yet) in contrary to most studies in the academic literature (De Boer et al 2015;James 2004;Jongbloed et al 2019;Young 2005). So, the focus is on throughput and to some extent output, but not on outcome performance.…”

“…Implementation depends on situational context, but also that that in the countries where the schemes were implemented performance agreements had eventually become accepted. Another study (Jongbloed et al 2019) analysed the introduction of performance agreements among universities and universities of applied sciences. Implementation among universities was found to increase quality and completion in education; however, universities of applied sciences experienced problems with regard to completion rates.…”

A System Strategy for Higher Education

“…The Netherlands is currently trying to change its university funding system to reduce competition between academics for research grants, cutting the time spent on largely unsuccessful funding applications. Changes proposed in a major review of the education sector mark a turn away from a competitive philosophy, reflecting growing Dutch concerns that the costs of pitting academics against each other in pursuit of funding have begun to outweigh the benefits (Jongbloed et al., 2109).…”