When the basic grant was abolished and the loan system was introduced in 2015, funds were freed up for improving the quality of higher education (student loan funds). The process surrounding this investment in education was laid down nationally in 2018 in the Quality Agreements plan. After this, each institution, in accordance with the agreed arrangements, drew up a plan in collaboration with the representative body to spend this money. The money had to be spent on the basis of six agreed themes, all of which had the overarching goal of improving the quality of education. It was up to each institution to decide, in consultation with the representative body, which themes to choose and how to implement them.

The ISO ensures that educational institutions actually spend these funds in a useful way. In addition, we help the representative bodies in the performance of their monitoring task in this regard through the National Quality Agreements Desk. Next year, this desk will merge with the Representative Bodies Desk, which is currently being set up for the benefit of the representative bodies.

Although the current quality agreements expire in 2024, the Minister of Education, Culture and Science decided in 2022 to continue this investment and allocate it structurally to institutions via standard funding (also known as lump sum). The ISO welcomes this decision. Through the main lines of the annual budget, the representative advisory body will retain the right of consent on the new plans for student loan funds. The ISO advocates maintaining a high degree of involvement of the representative body prior to the right of consent, in order to guarantee the voice of the student. The Executive Board should also actively involve the representative body during the drafting of the new plans. In this way, the representative body should not lose sight of this powerful tool.