Higher education in the Netherlands follows two tracks. There is academic education (wetenschappelijk onderwijs, wo) and higher professional education (hoger beroepsonderwijs, hbo).

In the higher professional education sector, schools or colleges of higher vocational or professional training (hogescholen, comparable to colleges and polytechnics in other countries) award BAs and MAs. Since 2011, they have been allowed to call themselves ‘University of Applied Sciences’ in English. There are some forty accredited and government-subsidised Universities of Applied Sciences in the Netherlands, including art and design schools, conservatories, the national police academy, and a number of schools offering a variety of study programmes.

For admission to a University of Applied Sciences, students need a secondary vocational (middelbare beroepsonderwijs, mbo) or senior general secondary (hoger algemeen voortgezet onderwijs, havo) qualification. In contrast, the requirements for admission to academic education at one of the research universities is a pre-university (voorbereidend wetenschappelijk onderwijs, vwo) qualification or, alternatively one year of preparatory study (the hbo propedeuse) at a University of Applied Sciences, although this does not apply to all degree programmes. 

Degree programmes (opleidingen) must be accredited by the Accreditation Organisation of the Netherlands and Flanders (Nederlands-Vlaamse Accreditatie Organisatie, NVAO). All accredited programmes are registered in the Central Register of Higher Education Programmes (Centraal Register Opleidingen Hoger Onderwijs, CROHO), a unit within the Ministry of Education, Culture and Science (OCW). New degree programmes that want to have their own, new name must apply for a ‘CROHO label’ to be accredited. The procedure is complicated, which is why departments usually decide to use an existing label.

Though the situation still varies between universities and fields, many undergraduate courses are now taught in English – at least in practice, if not `officially’. This allows international students to participate in such cases, and most standard textbooks are in English anyway. Furthermore, the vast majority of Dutch undergraduates are already comfortable with spoken and written English even at the start of their university studies (though you will find that they still need to sharpen these skills). For masters level courses, the larger fraction of international students makes English a necessity in most cases. Nonetheless, there is still significant debate about the choice between Dutch and English for university-level education in the Netherlands (e.g., see the KNAW-report 'Nederlands en/of Engels').

Teaching formats include lecture courses (hoorcolleges) as well as seminars and tutorials (werkcolleges). Dutch higher education institutions are known for a teaching style that involves a lot of teacher-student interaction and students working together in teams. Therefore, there are also various practical courses (practica) that may involve, e.g., laboratory work and/or small research projects. Academic skills like writing, presenting and computer programming are also taught. In their third year, some students complete a bachelor’s thesis (scriptie), which requires several months of guided research, a written report and presentation. Instructors in higher education tend to be seen as facilitators of knowledge and skill acquisition and as guides on a shared journey of scholarly discovery, rather than simply as conveyors of knowledge.