Flexibility in higher professional education: A survey in business administration programmes in the Netherlands

In order to develop higher education in theEuropean Union there is a need to increase themobility of students and teachers. Improvingthe flexibility of educational programming isan educational policy in the Netherlands tosupport this development. To get a clearpicture of the operational characteristics ofcurrent educational programmes, theirflexibility and conditions for improvement, asurvey was carried out in Businessadministration programmes in higherprofessional education institutes in theNetherlands. The results indicate that theseeducational programmes are organised in ratherrigid operational formats that seem to restrictflexibility. The issue of developing newoperational models that allow for more flexibleeducational programme formats is discussed.Operations management and educationaltechnology are considered as potential domainsfor a re-engineering of educational systems.