Bilingualism remains standard in participation at the university

The RUG board believes that the use of both Dutch and English in participation is the best option for inclusive participation.

‘Dutch is the administrative language in the law, we cannot ignore that,’ said board president Jouke de Vries on Thursday in the university council. ‘But I think the way things are going in our university council is a textbook example. That everyone can use the language that is most comfortable for that person.’

In the University Council, documents are delivered bilingually and council members can choose whether they speak in English or Dutch. There is always a live translator during the meetings.

New language policy

The RUG is working on a new language and cultural policy in view of the upcoming Balanced Internationalization Act (WIB). The proposed policy has caused confusion among participation councils in recent weeks, mainly because of a sentence that states that participation must be ‘primarily in Dutch’.

The question arose whether faculty councils where English is currently mainly spoken (such as those of the faculties of economics and science and engineering) can continue to do so. According to Mathieu Paapst of the Science Faction, this excludes Dutch employees and students.

“The current legal obligation is that documents submitted to participation must be in Dutch,” said the law teacher. ‘It is fine that it is translated into English, but they must be in Dutch.’

Efficient

The use of English is permitted, provided it is useful for someone, Paapst explained. But, he also said, if a faculty council only works in English with the reasoning that it is efficient, then they exclude people.

‘Then they do not take into account employees and perhaps students who understand English well, but do not have the ability to communicate at such a level. While they would like to participate in participation.’

According to Paapst, maintaining bilingualism for participation is the only way to actually exclude anyone. ‘People can either make their input in Dutch or in English. And with the presence of an interpreter and translations, everyone can participate.’

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