‘Our future depends on funding for education research’
Higher education research improves the quality of education. And these investments more than pay for themselves in terms of well-being and prosperity. This is what Professor of Education Science Roeland van der Rijst will say in his inaugural lecture.
Education research is a powerful tool for innovation in higher education, Van der Rijst will say in his inaugural lecture. And it is needed because, ‘The world is changing and education has to change too. We have to train people for the professions of the future – interdisciplinary skills, for instance – rather than for those of the past.’
Van der Rijst will also explain how teachers who reflect on their teaching teach better. ‘Thinking about what they say and how that comes across to others. And making adjustments if necessary.’ And they learn from that too.
He acknowledges that there is often little time for reflection. ‘That may well be a lack in our education system.’ Education research lays the groundwork for the development towards learning organisations, a culture of learning, reflection and adaptation, he will say.
A person’s development
Van der Rijst worked as a physics and chemistry teacher at secondary schools in South Africa and the Netherlands before embarking on his university career. Teaching and learning fascinated him because, ‘It’s about a person’s development.’ So how do you provide effective education? ‘Without education research, you don’t know what you’re doing.’
He has taught courses such as education psychology and educational innovation and is now head of the ICLON (Leiden University Graduate School of Teaching) research programme at Leiden University. ‘It is important that there are university-educated teachers at secondary schools.’
Research together with teachers
There are numerous topics Van der Rijst would like to focus on in the coming years. What essential knowledge and skills are needed for a specific profession or academic field? What also fascinates him is how good the digital tools are for supporting teaching, for example. He focuses on higher education but many of the principles also apply to primary and secondary education.
What Van der Rijst likes best is conducting research together with teachers. A physics teacher once asked him: How can we design lab teaching in such a way that it helps students develop their cognitive thinking skills? And a law teacher was curious about what does and doesn’t work in hybrid teaching and whether the level of student engagement has a positive effect on the learning process. ‘That’s another thing I’d like to find out.’
He also wants to look at how teaching staff can make their teaching more inclusive, a topic he has explored before. Taking account of colour blindness and dyslexia and not just using examples from Western works, for example, but above all, ‘Good contact with your students and being empathetic so they feel safe enough to tell you what they need from you as their teacher.’
The country’s future
Van der Rijst advises investing in education research to improve the quality of learning and teaching in higher education. ‘Every euro of investment more than pays for itself in the qualities students bring to the job market. And in people’s prosperity and the happiness they experience.’ He mentions the many studies showing that the longer you stay in school, the more you will earn later.
The government’s Outline Agreement does not look promising for education and definitely not for education research. ‘I hope the cabinet will appreciate that the country’s future depends on the investments made now in education’, says Van der Rijst. ‘And that the opposition can smooth down the rough edges of the plans.’
Text: Thessa Lageman
Photo: Marc de Haan