Street-level bureaucracy in the Dutch higher education system:

 Rule of Man in the Rule of Law

Street-level bureaucracy in the Dutch higher education system: a failed attempt of the standardised competency-based system

 

Introduction

In education, street-level bureaucracy plays a role when it comes to the interaction between the administrators – or bureaucrats – (teachers) and the clients (students). The Netherlands has tried to formally limit the power of bureaucrats in the higher education system, by introducing a new, standardised competency-based system, where it is not up to the administrators to decide what makes a student fit (‘sympathetic’) or unfit for a certain programme or grade, but it is the curriculum’s framework. Yet, how successful is this internationalised system of standards? Research has shown that, at the macro-, institutional level – from one university to the other – it has succeeded in eliminating major differences in educational style, units, materials, and assessments (de Weert & Boezerooy, 2007, p. 12; Capano, 2018, p. 682; Maassen et al., 2011, pp. 486-488; Harris et al., 2010; Scheele et al., 2008). Yet, the reforms failed to look at the micro-level of education, what is happening in the classrooms, within the standard guidelines. Therefore, the question is: to what extend has the competency-based higher education system in the Netherlands eliminated street-level bureaucrats’ influence on students’ results?

Besides the seemingly formalised frameworks, the personal judgement of teachers plays a significant role in the Dutch higher education system, at the micro-, classroom-level. Particularly, when 1) it comes to the grading of exams with non-multiple-choice, open ended questions, essays, and face-to-face presentations. All that when the student’s name or face is required to be present on the particular assignment (Malouff, 2008; Lindgaard et al., 2006; Bonefeld & Dickhäuser, 2018). Also, 2) the COVID-pandemic has led to bureaucratic bias in online education, whereby teacher by teacher differences affect students (Mahdizadeh et al., 2008). The micromechanisms of administrative practice (the situatedness – the particular case’s context –, their knowing – that is, their pre-existing knowledge –, their action – acting to keep up one’s social image –, and their interaction with other bureaucrats and their clients) behind university-teachers’ administrative work (Wagenaar, 2004) remains very much influential at the micro-levels of grading as well as in online education-style.

 

The history of eliminating street-level bureaucratic bias in Dutch higher education

Multiple factors played a role in how we got to today’s higher education system in the Netherlands. Introducing the European Bologna system to internationalise education, gain recognition around the world was one of them. This required the reforming of unorganised university-governance, high drop-out rates and teaching by unqualified staff (de Weert & Boezerooy, 2007, p. 12) by a standardisation of credits, amount and quality of teaching materials, teachers, assessments, and enrolments. It required the massification of the higher education system (Capano, 2018, p. 682). The government started to create policies focusing on this sector of education from the 1970s onwards (de Weert & Boezerooy, 2007, pp. 12-18; Maassen et al., 2011, pp. 486-488). They introduced curricula and research-based funding, to try to move away from the hierarchical and bureaucratic system (Capano, 2018, p. 682; Maassen et al., 2011, pp. 486-488). Therefore, this process of government-led nation-wide massification and standardisation has started to limit the teachers’ personal role in what and how to teach. In other words, the internationalisation-process has become a limit on street-level bureaucracy – the difference between institutions, programmes, and classes.

Another element of curriculum-internationalisation has been the increasing the availability of university programmes in English language. In the highest-ranking institutions (Leiden University and the University of Amsterdam), there are now more programmes available in English, than in Dutch (Huang, 2006, pp. 531-538). Consequently, the material that can be used for teaching has, again, been ‘standardised’ – and limited – to those available in (and often originating from) English language. Therefore, the free choice of material to be used for providing the knowledge – and viewpoints on debated topics – has also been taken away from (Dutch) university teachers.

Although, these developments have not mainly targeted the bias originating from street-level bureaucracy in higher education institutions, but rather the quality of education in the (inter)national arena. There has also been at attempt to directly address the issue of differences among classrooms, linked to the personality of the particular teacher. That is, the introduction of a competency-based system – with a particular focus on medical higher education. This system precisely guides institutions and teachers, what the outcome of the education must be, but not very strictly defines, howthat must be achieved (Harris et al., 2010; Scheele et al., 2008).

We can see, how the 1) government’s involvement and nation-wide standardisation, the 2) internationalisation of the Dutch higher education system, as well as the 3) launch of a competency-based system has limited influence of the teachers’ (administrators or bureaucrats) personal micromechanisms of their administrative practice behind their administrative work (Wagenaar, 2004). Yet, as we will see, this attempt has failed to reach the classrooms and exam halls. Only succeeded at the broad level of teaching material (particularly when taught in English, amount of work and assessments), units (e.g. credits, semesters, syllabus) and the focus on students’ competency. Yet, this so-called ‘competency’ (the what) is still greatly up to the grading teacher, how to define, when he/she looks at the student’s face or non-anonymous assignment (through giving- or deducting points due to personal micromechanisms, within the rubric’s, often broad definitions of what to give points for) (Wagenaar, 2004; Malouff, 2008; Lindgaard et al., 2006; Bonefeld & Dickhäuser, 2018).

 

Competency-based standardised system: a failed attempt to eliminate bureaucracy

So, what does this competency-based system do in reality? For students, in the Netherlands, instead of their factual knowledge, they are tested on their ability to use their knowledge on ongoing issues that are not yet closed or have a solution, which leads to high scores in reading, mathematics and other sciences (Peters & Oliver, 2009, pp. 267-268). Also, the standardised system often ignores personal circumstances (e.g., the day and mode of assessment is fixed, regardless of some students’ illness, difficulty with that particular mode of assessment, etc.). For example, in 2021, I personally experienced issues with using a Dutch keyboard at the examination hall of the University of Amsterdam, which I have not been familiar with. There is also still room for street-level bureaucracy: the teacher or course-coordinator can decide on the particular student’s case (e.g., I myself had COVID-19 during an exam in 2021 at Leiden University, with hard symptoms, and the mentors’ quick and efficient evaluation of my personal case has eventually allowed me to take the exam at another time). This bureaucracy, therefore, sometimes can be for ‘the better’ of differences.

On the other hand, for teachers, the system’s effect is two-sided. They either focus on providing more knowledge (reductionism) or teach is a more competency-based way. They feel pressure under the outcome-based system, besides finding it useful for students’ development. This pressure is a significant drawback on their own professional development – and their bureaucracy (Barman et al., 2014). Still, in this system, a lot is dependent on the teacher’s characteristic. The focus on competency – or outcome – is a context (a micromechanism), that plays a role in the administrative practice of teachers (Wagenaar, 2004) similarly to the role of their personality. Being a caretaker rather than a law-enforcer, for example, might lead to better numbers in the pressuring ‘outcome’, because they provide more support for students (Zacka, 2017, pp. 66-110). As the outcome – or competency, that cannot be measured by the teacher’s own tools of measurement but by standard frameworks of curricula – ‘grades’ the teacher as well (Barman et al., 2014), this situatedness (Wagenaar, 2004) might urge them to provide more support to students to succeed, and consequently, limit socio-economic differences, increasing equality and inclusiveness – as did the administrators in our role-play (based on Raaphorst, 2018). This shall limit the system’s nature of preferring higher-income students who can afford additional support to achieve higher outcomes (Sturgis & Patrick, 2010, p. 22). Yet, besides this supposed success at the formal institutional level, at the educational level in the classrooms, research has shown that this market-driven standardisation of competency has actually increased exclusionism (Peters & Oliver, 2009). 

In sum, the outcome/competency-based system, although urges street-level bureaucrats (teachers) to be equally supportive ‘caretakers’ ­– while teaching the equal, standard material, using standard measures of assessment and grading –, it also leads to increased differences in how they achieve those outcomes, subject to the particular teacher’s personality and micromechanisms.

 

Yet, street-level discretion remains

Besides the standardisation and attempt to overcome the hierarchy and bureaucracy of the Dutch higher education system by the introduction of a competency-based system at the institutional level, there still remains much room for street-level bureaucracy at the class-room-level.

Grading

Firstly, the handing in of most written assignments at Dutch universities still happens non-anonymously. Consequently, so does the grading. The grading of street-level bureaucrats (teachers) by knowing who the assignment belongs to, has the threat of leading to personal bias. Due to the teacher’s micromechanisms of knowing (having pre-existing knowledge about the student, former experience with him/her in the classroom) and interaction, behind their work (Wagenaar, 2004), they might be biased consciously, or unconsciously (Malouff, 2008). Contrary to the United Kingdom, where nearly all assignments, where possible (except presentations, for instance), are anonymised, in an attempt to eliminate this bias. Although, learning from the findings that anonymity has no point when the second grader is independent from both, the primary grader (the teacher) and the student (Pitt & Winstone, 2018, pp. 1183-1184). In addition, if students are seeking help about their assignment in-progress, they must enclose their topic, that potentially erases their anonymity, so it is not truly guaranteed. Therefore, besides the competency-based framework, an outsider second grader would be helpful for the Dutch system’s assignments. For instance, in the UK, these outsider graders are teachers from other universities across the country, allocated randomly (e.g., University of Cambridge, n.d.; University of Edinburgh, n.d.).

Second, the grading of face-to-face presentations remain an issue, even with the above-mentioned suggestion. Since the ‘outsider’ second grader should also see and hear the presentation be able to mark it, he/she is not truly an outsider anymore. This is due to humans’ formulation of an opinion within just 50 milliseconds (Lindgaard et al., 2006), while the outsider has no chance to reshape this first impression later, due to not a lack of further interaction. Although, I cannot offer a solution to this issue, since I worry that, if the outsider grader would come to the classroom more often, for example, he/she could become biased the same way as their original teacher with regular interaction – a micromechanism of administrative practice –; nor it is possible to grade a presentation without the students’ audio-visuals – excluding the presenting student’s characteristics.

Third, as we have learned previously, due to the internationalisation of Dutch universities, more university programmes are taught in English than in Dutch (Huang, 2006, pp. 531-538). Yet, the majority of teachers remain to be Dutch nationals (e.g. 79% at the University of Amsterdam, the largest university of the country) (University of Amsterdam, n.d.). This might also contribute to evaluator bias when teachers grade assignments knowing the student’s non-Dutch identity. Bonefeld and Dickhäuser (2018), for example, has found evidence that when the migrant background of a student is known to the evaluator, the grade is significantly lower than that of those without a migrant background. This, in the Netherlands, must have a significant impact on international students’ grades. Especially, since in most cases, the assignments of the English language university programme can still be submitted in Dutch, as, for example, at the University of Amsterdam (University of Amsterdam, 2021, § B.1.2). Due to this, it is obvious for the graders whether they are grading a national, or international student. Therefore, the competency-based, standardised, national system still allows for street-level bureaucracy and its bias when it comes to assessments. There is still a lot to work on the grading of students assessed – in written or oral forms –, as well as the disclosure of their Dutch/international origin.

Online education

Last but not least, it is worth mentioning, as the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic has moved higher education online, the competency-based system fails to note the bias among teachers when it comes to this new form of education. Research has shown not only that there is variance among teachers’ use of the e-learning environment, but also, that 43% of this variance is subject to the particular teacher’s attitude towards online activities and e-learning (Mahdizadeh et al., 2008). In other words, their administrative practice’s micromechanism of knowing highly affects their administrative work (Wagenaar, 2004) – that is, their online teaching of students. Therefore, besides grading, the COVID-19 pandemic has highlighted another weakness of the standardised, competency-based educational framework, that allows for street-level discretion on the grounds of the particular administrator’s (teacher) IT skills. Their readiness to use the online learning environment is not standard.

 

Conclusion

In this paper, we have learned how the Netherland got to its current, standardised, internationalised curricula, that limits street-level bureaucracy at the institutional level – setting precise frameworks for education units, materials, methods, and assessments – but at the classroom level, it still fails to overcome teachers’ (administrators or bureaucrats) personal bias. Their bias, that is due to the micromechanisms that play a role in their administrative practice (Wagenaar, 2004; Malouff, 2008; Lindgaard et al., 2006) – for which, the current system gives space behind the administrative work that has been more or less standardised, what to do (de Weert & Boezerooy, 2007, p. 12; Capano, 2018, p. 682; Maassen et al., 2011, pp. 486-488; Harris et al., 2010; Scheele et al., 2008), but not how to –, that affects the interaction between the administrator (teacher) and the client (student).

We have discovered that, besides the competency-based system’s attempt to eliminate bureaucratic bias in the higher education system, there is still a lot going on around examination. Particularly, due to the non-anonymous methods of assessment by non-external markers. Students are not graded on their ‘competency’, but – consciously or unconsciously – by their faces, names, and origin, as long as those are displayed on the assignments (Malouff, 2008; Lindgaard et al., 2006; Bonefeld and Dickhäuser, 2018). In addition, in times of the ongoing pandemic, students receive different kinds of education, depending on the particular teachers’ attitude towards- and skills of the online education-space (Mahdizadeh et al., 2008; Wagenaar, 2004). Therefore, answering the core research question: to what extend has the competency-based higher education system in the Netherlands eliminated street-level bureaucrats’ influence on students’ results, we can see that, besides the overall frameworks’ elimination of bias among different institutions, at the classroom level, on the front of grading – and online education –, students remain vulnerable to the administrators’ (teachers) personality and micromechanisms (Mahdizadeh et al., 2008; Wagenaar, 2004; (Zacka, 2017, pp. 66-110). There is still a lot to work on, in the attempt to standardise the Dutch higher education, beyond the institutional level, in the classrooms. Although, teachers have been limited in what to teach and grade, their administrative practice of how to do their work, is still unregulated on multiple grounds, while their background abilities also differ, leading to differences in teaching-standards.

 

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