 Well, good morning everyone, I'm very happy to be here on campus in Delft. I can imagine you want to be here as well, working on that, but for me it's great to talk to you this morning, so please shoot your questions. We got some questions sent in previously by students and a lot of them are wondering, because you just experienced what's like in one of our first year lectures and they're wondering how are these experiences from the students taken into account in big government decisions regarding, for example, COVID measures, because a lot of them, they don't feel hurt, they don't feel like the government knows how they're doing and that that is taken into account. Well, we do our utmost to listen to students. I myself, I go to these online courses and lectures two, three times a week and talk to students, just ask them how's your education, but how are you, how are you doing and what we fully understand in government is how difficult this time is for young people, because well it's the time in your life you're looking for freedom and that's exactly what you don't have freedom in to go out, to meet your friends, to have this social interaction. And what I see is that the lectures are quite good and your education is quite good and the results from students are well under the circumstances actually it's a great achievement for students and their teachers. But in looking for student welfare, what we try to do is can we have more room for students on campus? Can we give them back sports? And can we give them some room to meet, to interact first and foremost for first year students to get to know each other, get to know their town for some international students to get to know the Netherlands. So yes it's on top of the table and yesterday I can say we had a long discussion about education and how we are going to open up again step by step and we're really looking into it and we fully understand that this is a very good difficult time and student welfare is a great concern on this moment. Okay so I have had a lot of questions from students asking if the libraries can open up again because the way it was is you went into a library with a time slot and then you sat down you studied so you didn't have a lot of social contact plus the one and a half meters apart did prevent a lot of spread of the Covid so a lot of students were wondering if they could open up again because the concentration you have in the library is of course very different from what you can experience at home. Yes I fully understand and I heard from students as well that it's very important that you have this time slot if only once a week that you can go somewhere and study in a library have access to the material there so it's really something we're trying to do and what we discuss also with the local authorities how much space can we give in higher education for students to go to campus to visit the library but also to visit the local library and sit there and study with each other how can we open up other spaces for students to study with each other yes so it's on the table. So what a lot of questions we also got in is because there's been looked into how we can open up again which is always good but students are also wondering how they're going to be compensated for for this year because we recently learned that of course the tuition next year will be halved for for most students for all students but not everyone will be studying next year who's been studying this year which has arguably been the most difficult year for for a lot of students because some students will be graduating some students just need to take a break for a year taking a gap year and they're wondering how will they become compensated for this year instead of next year. I understand the question but I hope students also understand that this crisis is so big and we have so many issues that we can't target everyone so what we did is last year we had compensation for those students who had a delay and we will compensate with half the tuition for next year and also having a longer right on a scholarship or the OVA chip card but it's it's hardly doable to compensate everyone and for those who graduate this year well they did a wonderful job and I think all students say I rather have my diploma than have compensation next year so if you graduate this year well congratulations well done tremendously but I would say you better have a diploma than compensation in the next year because you still do have costs of living so to all the students who are thinking about this do your utmost to prevent a delay because still a diploma is better than a delay and well it gives you freedom to go on the labour market but I do understand the question because they also they had a difficult year and they did a wonderful job in graduating. Okay so a really short question so international students are also asking if they get a half tuition payment for next year because this was not stated on the website. Everyone who pays the legal tuition fee will have half so all the Dutch and the European students for the international students we can't do it. Another interesting question that got sent in is how will you ensure that extra funding for the well-being in health of the students we spend at the right places and what are the immediate visible effects for students because in the past the effects of extra funding in education for instance those caused by cutting student grants have had a delay for several years before becoming visible so yes well we have we will have compensation for in higher education this year to have an extra impulse for student welfare extra teachers so it will be money spent this year and it will go to universities and universities of applied sciences and I hope that they will involve a student and teacher in how to spend this money in the best in the best way and they have to report on it but I'm not going to say from my office in The Hague this is how you have to spend it because that doesn't work at every faculty at every university they will have to see where is extra support the most needed please involve students and teachers in that and they will have to report but it's also up to you to be critical on this. Okay I have a question from the voice of god over here because I don't have a camera but there is one question coming in from the chat asking about or making a comment that their biggest concern for them is uncertainty and what will happen in the months and this ends up causing a lot of stress and how things are changing on a on a regular basis and they just want to to see your take on this or yeah party's empathy as well but also if you recognize the effect that that has on on students. Yes I do recognize that uncertainty I think at this moment is the most difficult issue to handle not only for students but for a lot of people in society because we don't know what the virus will do and if we will have after the British virus we will have other ones how fast well we hope that we can vaccinate as fast as possible but there are still uncertainties and what we see all over society that uncertainty is always the most difficult thing to handle in your life and it asks from all of us a lot of resilience to to cope with this and especially I think for young people they well they don't know how will universities open up what with the labor market after I graduate what will the economy do what about housing what about traveling what about having a beer in a bar in the near future so yes we see the uncertainty and we see what it's doing to young people when we see what it's doing in society and it's it's a great concern and it is in what we discuss in the health effects of what we do in our COVID-19 discussions we also more and more have to look into not only the economic effects but also what it is doing to mental health of people and especially students yes so obviously just talks a bit about mental health but a lot of students are asking how to cope with this short-term and long-term and what maybe the university or we ourselves or maybe the government can help us with with coping with this loneliness and repetitiveness of everyday life currently with this online education yes well what we try to do at the moment and this is the decision decisions we have to take tomorrow morning is looking at what can we do short term to help young people coping with mental health with loneliness with feelings of depression so what we are looking into is of course what can we do in opening up education again and I don't think it will be there tomorrow for higher education what we do looking at sports for young people having being able to play football with your team playing hockey with your team well it makes it you can come together with 11 or 12 playing in a team seeing each other so that's one of the things we're looking after is where can we provide spaces for interaction we also a couple of weeks ago we launched a plan and asked also the local authorities to get together with universities and see where can we provide space for people to meet safely and the other thing I would like to say is well please look after each other if you in a working group with 30 people try also to well not only see each other online but go for a walk in the park how and I can understand well normally you say it's something for old people to go and have a meet for for walk but please have a walk have a run you can have a run in pairs so find ways to have a buddy have someone you can talk to and who you can call when you and just say also I'm a bit lonely please help and that's what I would like to say for young people it's not you don't have to be ashamed to ask for help we all need these moments and please if you have difficulties in coping with the situation call someone at your university a fellow students someone and ask for help because that's what we have to do look after each other personally I have looked up the psychologists in Delft and there are waiting lines for in about eight or nine weeks which is pretty long if you have some mental issues yeah so is there any way we can change this well we tried we decided to give universities extra funding to support students but that doesn't change your waiting list so in the meantime you have to make sure that you relate to someone and just look for help because not everyone needs professional help so a lot we can do is in helping each other so please look for a buddy look for a dean a teacher whatever so now we have a little bit of a positive looking question and that question and that the student is asking is if the minister thinks that there is any positive outcomes from the COVID situation in terms of the impact on education oh yes I think we learned a lot and before before COVID-19 we had this plan with all the universities and how can we speed up digital education well we did speed up a little bit too fast but we learned a lot and what I hope that of course we still have a lot to learn in doing it better but what we see is in having these lectures online which you can repeat endlessly at home so maybe even I can understand what you're learning here but it also gives room for more student-teacher contact for more working groups so in this blended education we will I hope we will have after COVID I think it adds a lot of quality for students so I hope we will get there soon but as a choice and not because it's necessary all right I got another interesting question here not regarding the current situation but in general and they're asking for your opinion should the modern TU or just student be more concerned about the implications of their actions and their commitment for their future as adults so focusing on getting connections working experience internships doing honors programs and that sort of stuff or should we prioritize enjoying our time studying and if it's the second do you believe spending extra time obtaining a degree should become an accepted course of action to reduce stress for this well it's it's it's not the one or the other you have to balance of course it's good to invest in in your CV in activities but it's also good for you as a person to enjoy your life as a student and personally I do believe that sometimes taking a bit more time to finish your studies can help you a lot as a person so and some students are happy to do it in in four years and they develop as a person but sometimes I see it gives some students too much stress to being in this retros all I have to finish in four years I have this have to have all these activities on my CV so please do relax a little and some of you are so young and sometimes I for example I graduated when I was 21 and went to work and I always regretted it a bit that I didn't take more time to well enjoy life develop as a person because later in life you never do it again so next one is actually a really fun question so who is the coolest or most famous person you have ever met oh wow most famous isn't always the most the coolest so I think who's the most famous I think it's Madeleine Albright who I had lunch with which was great which was very inspiring and well and but and she was also kind of cool yeah and still is at her age and the fun thing was and it was fully coincidence and a typical maybe typical female thing but we wore the same shoes and that gave us a great fun but I think that was the coolest meeting I had I believe yeah and and and the coolest experience was speaking at UN you also know the big hall where you have the animal meeting and well I had the ability to speak there for three minutes and that was kind of a cool experience yeah you have a bucket list so there's a lot of students also asking about the fact that there's a lot of emphasis on trying to get middle bar school students back into the classroom and wondering why there seems to be a stronger push to get middle bar school students back and not university students when there isn't that big of an age difference yes I understand the question but what where we look at is where where by closing secondary schools and universities where is the most damage done to young people where is it most needed and I do believe that everyone is very eager to get back to campus so we are taking the first steps in and that's only for students in secondary school also one day a week or one day and a half probably and I hope tomorrow for students in vocational training and also what we look at is who's most vulnerable and well we look at have to look at the numbers who add up but I can assure you that students in university well they're on top of the stack from still the things we have to open up but also well there are there are shops and a lot of enterprises which are still close but for the whole of government education opening up education is top priority so one of the problems that students are facing is not so much about the the education in learning and and studying the material but it's really sort of the the the interaction that's the personal connections and stuff that happen online and you know we're relying on on professors and teachers and this is a technical university and these are my words not not the students words but engineers aren't necessarily the best people to foster interpersonal connections you know we tend to be less social than the the rest of the general population so how can we deal with these sorts of challenges I come I come from a family of engineers so I know but still you all have to do the effort because it helps tremendously I was around Christmas I visited University of Maastricht who has a lot of international students as well and they were asking the question what do they have to do at Christmas not having their family here so they asked everyone please have a buddy and ask invite them at your home so I think you're all very technical so you know how to make an app group or a chat group where you can divide people and even you can do it online in groups of two or three I know my daughter also studies and she has these working groups of three where they meet online but also are being able to well body up sometimes so yes I know for engineers it's sometimes difficult but you have to do the effort hello thank you so much for being here and talking to all the students I think it's really nice to hear what you what you have to say about it and I hope students feel a bit more hurt in by yeah by the government now yeah yes and it's well thanks for your time it was great to be here great to hear you and well I'm really impressed by your lecture it's it was it it's it's hard for me to understand but it was really well done and well I know you're on my mind every moment of the day and also your well-being is on the table of the government tomorrow and the day after and the day after and we really are concerned and we're really trying to open up for you as soon as possible