NHL Stenden University of Applied Sciences Speciality : Education
programme: Primary Education

I am about to finish my bachelor’s at ITEps (at the Meppel campus!), the International Teacher Education for Primary Schools. The degree is collaborative and innovative. It has left me with a strong motivation to study and think more critically about my approaches to education and how I see myself as a teacher.
The degree also doesn’t just help you become a teacher, but with its design-based approach, it gives you many other skills that can be used in various areas of the education world, whether it be curriculum development, special needs education or material development (like writing books, creating fun activities etc.).
The atmosphere amongst students and staff oozes intrinsic motivation to learn, and lifelong learning skills are strongly embedded in the programme.

The only unfortunate downside of the programme, which is a work in progress, is that it does not fully certify me to teach in all schools as it currently still is a bachelor of education and not a certified teaching programme. This means I cannot work at publicly funded schools, but mainly private ones. However, a certification can be achieved through a one-year online course, so it does not mean there aren’t job opportunities in the future, and many schools still hire ITEps students as teaching assistants and then support them in becoming certified.

Another thing to keep in mind is that the campus is in Meppel, which is a smaller Dutch city. There are no other study programmes there apart from the ITE programmes (ITEps and ITEss), which means your student life depends on the students who study the same course as you. That makes accommodation very affordable – and – there’s no housing issue! The community on campus is great and social, with students organising events for everyone (parties, painting events, sports etc.).