Shifting Boundaries in Higher Education: Dutch Hogescholen on the Move

This chapter presents the Dutch case in the CIPES project “The role of polytechnics in higher education”. The chapter focuses on the Dutch equivalent of the Portuguese polytechnics: the hogescholen or HBO-institutions (HBO is the Dutch acronym for higher professional education). The contribution is divided in two sections: “the state of the art” and “reflections”. The structure is as follows: In the state of the art section, first the general structure of Dutch higher education is presented. Then some background is given on the development of the hogescholen sector. Subsequently, specific issues are discussed: staff, labour market situation and graduates, governance structure and management, funding, the Bachelor-Master structure, accreditation and the relationship between hogescholen and their environment. In these sections there is also some information on the university sector, in order to show the similarities and contrasts between the two sectors of Dutch higher education. The second section of this chapter is more of a reflective nature. It discusses the level of autonomy in the hogescholen sector and the current (policy) debates and tensions in the binary structure.