Management

Bachelor Health Policy &ManagementAstrid van Keulen, MSc, education advisorThe bachelor programme in Health Policy & Management is doingwell. This may be concluded from the number of new students(around 160 new entries for 2010-2011), the 68% pass rate after4 years, the favourable programme reviews, and the convincinglyacquired re-accreditation.The years 2009 and 2010 have particularly been marked by there-accreditation of the bachelor programme. The self-evaluationreport was prepared in 2009 and the official visitation took place inApril 2010. Most importantly, the committee judged positively on theprogramme. The committee especially appreciated the structure ofthe curriculum, i.e. the build-up from monodisciplinary to multi- andinterdisciplinary courses, in combination with the academiccompetences programme.Naturally, the accreditation committee also suggested a number ofareas of special interest and made some recommendations to furtherimprove the curriculum. It was suggested to realise a more balanceddistribution of ECTS over the various courses, in particular for the firstyear; to find ways to reduce the relatively high drop-out rate in thefirst year; to improve students’ writing skills so as to increase thesisquality; and to evaluate why students perceive the first year’s studyload as light while at the same time many students are dropping out.These recommendations were largely in line with other initiativeswithin Erasmus University such as “Goed uit de Startblokken” and“Nominaal is Normaal” and other iBMG plans. In 2010, iBMGenergetically took up all recommendations and formed a workinggroup to commence curricular and extracurricular reforms, notably inthe first year of the bachelor programme. Several measures havealready been introduced in 2010, such as a compulsory languageproficiency test, an earlier start of tutoring, more attention toacademic writing skills, the set-up a digital student portfolio, andbetter harmonisation of courses in terms of assignments andadvancement of writing skills.36