There will be no recognized imam training funded by the Dutch government for the time being. Outgoing Minister Karien van Gennip (Social Affairs, CDA) announced this on Monday in a letter to the House of Representatives. The parties involved, including the Vrije Universiteit, the Amsterdam University of Applied Sciences, IPABO University of Applied Sciences and the Contact Body for Muslims and Government, were unable to reach agreement on the content of the training.
According to the minister, several attempts to get the parties on the same page failed. Due to the disagreement, the imam training will not be able to start in 2025 as hoped. In a joint statement, the initiators expressed their disappointment with the outcome of the negotiations. According to them, after “careful research and extensive discussions” they have come to the conclusion that the “expectations of the parties involved do not match.”
A committee has been working together since September 2023 to set up an imam training course, partly because Dutch mosques are now dependent on foreign training courses for their imams. However, the ideas about the content of the training and the legal feasibility of the collaboration turned out to be too far apart, according to the minister. The last subsidized imam training in the Netherlands, which was offered at Inholland University of Applied Sciences, ended in 2013 because it would not have been profitable. The Netherlands currently has a number of imam training courses, but because they are not recognized by the government, they cannot count on subsidies and students are not eligible for student financing.
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Tags: Setting subsidized imam training Netherlands fails due disagreement among initiators
