Bachelor's in Dutch is coming back
News: Aug 24, 2010
Mona Arfs is Deputy Head of Department and Senior Lecturer in Dutch at the University of Gothenburg.
In the late 1990s, the University of Gothenburg considered cancelling its Dutch language studies. This is no longer the case. After ten years in the freezer, Gothenburg students can once again earn a bachelor’s degree in Dutch. Moreover, starting in the autumn of 2011, Dutch will be included in the Professional Translation Programme.
Dutch language studies were introduced at the University of Gothenburg in 1974, targeting doctoral students in German who needed to understand Dutch in order to read medieval texts written in Low German.
Today, the target group has changed to include a great deal of economics and engineering students from, for example, the School of Business Economics and Law or Chalmers University of Technology. Other students study Dutch simply because of personal interest and some have jobs where skills in Dutch are useful.
‘There are many businesses in and around Gothenburg that have connections with the Netherlands. Of course they see it as an advantage to know the language and Dutch culture and history,’ says Mona Arfs, Senior Lecturer in Dutch at the University of Gothenburg.
She started teaching Dutch as a part-time teacher back in 1978, when the course programme was broadened. As a result of retirements twenty years later, the courses that led to a bachelor’s or a master’s degree were put on ice. What remained were the introductory and intermediate courses, which Mona Arfs became in charge of.
The introductory course boomed
’Ironically, the introductory course boomed as the advanced courses were cancelled. Maybe the students thought that they’d better hurry up before the introductory course too was cancelled.’
As the so-called Bologna Process was launched about a decade ago, Mona Arfs was admitted to a doctoral studies programme. Her goal was to, as a teacher with a doctorate, develop a bachelor's course in Dutch in connection with the adaptation to the Bologna Process 2007.
A strategic decision by her Department and a scholarship from the Faculty of Arts enabled her to work half time and spend the rest of her days focusing on her research. In April 2007, she earned her PhD.
’I sensed that the Faculty had become interested in the Dutch language again. Immediately after my public defence, I was asked to develop a course plan for a bachelor's course in Dutch,’ says Arfs.
The first graduates
She contacted previous students who had taken the introductory and intermediate courses, and several of them came back to continue studying Dutch at the bachelor's course.
Having worked hard to re-introduce the bachelor’s degree in Dutch ever since it was cancelled in 1997, Arfs was very excited to see the first three students graduate.
’Our society needs Dutch, both in business and culture, and this calls for a bachelor's course where students can learn things they can use at a professional level. Another sign of the importance of the Dutch language is that it will be included in the Professional Translation Programme starting in the autumn of 2011,’ says Arfs.
For more information, please contact Mona Arfs at +46 (0)31 786 45 92 or mona.arfs@sprak.gu.se