Column – On to 2025!

We are all looking back on an eventful year. The future is always uncertain; this was no different for our parents and grandparents. But uncertainty about the future has increased in recent years. Changes follow each other faster and are more far-reaching than ever.   

This has an impact on how we live, work and learn. It means we have to adapt, constantly developing new skills, faster than ever. What helps there is education without red tape, without barriers, where you can really focus on what is important: learning, growing, giving space to your curiosity. In other words: (lifelong) learning without barriers.  

That no matter where you come from or what your background is – you have access to the best education. That you have the freedom to choose how, what and when you want to learn, whether you are a 19-year-old student, a 55-year-old professional or a 40-year-old with a busy family.   

That you no longer have to deal with administrative hassles if you want to take a piece of study in another place, at another institution. Or if you want to speed up, slow down, deepen or broaden your studies at a time that makes sense to you. That the ‘peripheral issues’ surrounding your study run smoothly, so that you can fully focus on what really matters. For instance, you have once been granted extra facilities at the examination board in your well-secured Edu Wallet because of your dyslexia – that is then also arranged for other education you will follow in the future – even if it is at a completely different place in the Netherlands, and with a bit of luck even elsewhere in Europe.   

This will not be an easy road, because we are, with 107 educational institutions, doing something that has never before been attempted on this scale in education, anywhere in the world. Austerity may also trouble us quite a bit in this regard. Yet we see that social developments are calling for this. Time for your involvement in these developments. Is your institution already fully involved in Npuls? Are you already working on ‘learning without barriers’? Next year, you should definitely start to notice some of that.  

So let this column not just be the end of a difficult year, but also the beginning of something new. Let’s continue to invest together in good education, accessible and inclusive education. Time, energy and resources. So that together we can realise the education of the future and for the future. Because the importance of education is undiminished. In times when democracies worldwide are coming under pressure again, education is of extra importance. Because we know: those who do not invest in education forget how expensive ignorance is.   

So: on to another eventful year, on to 2025!