‘Benafsha’s story is a good test case for our university of applied sciences’
Benafsha Tamkin, who fled Afghanistan, finished her studies at Windesheim University of Applied Sciences. Her special story can be read in an article that was recently published in Trouw(opens in new tab). It makes you curious about the actions undertaken behind the scenes to make her graduation possible. An interview with Pieter van Essen, former manager of the International Business programme in which Tamkin graduated.
Once, when he was a teenager, an enthusiastic social studies teacher and theologist gave him the idea of becoming an aid worker. Ever since, improving the fate of refugees fleeing from poverty or violence has become a powerful drive in Pieter van Essen’s life. As programme manager of International Business, he committed himself to helping Benafsha Tamkin. It took a great deal of arrangements before she was even allowed to come to the Netherlands. Her story is in his opinion a good test case for Windesheim University of Applied Sciences and the higher education sector on how to deal with student refugees wanting to study in the Netherlands. In the future their numbers will only increase further, says van Essen.
How did Benafsha Tamkin cross your path at International Business?
‘I’ve known Mark de Vries for a long time, our degree programme has had excellent relations with his company, our students are doing internships and final projects there. It’s a Dutch company with lots of international employees and contacts. Mark really wants to make a difference with his company, as you can read in the article in Trouw. By coincidence, he came across an article about Tamkin and her wishes. Mark decided to find out what he could do for her. He came to me and said: “This is what’s going on, what can you do to help? I first needed a lot of information before I could get to work: her curriculum, the subjects she’d taken, the study programme she’d done. One condition was that it had to be an English-taught programme. She had already done a Business Administration programme and was looking to continue her studies in a Business-oriented programme. That’s how it all started and subsequently she gradually gave me more and more bits of information.’
What arrangements had to be made before she could start her studies here?
‘Before she could come over here, she not only had to meet a massive number of conditions, but also needed to be incredibly lucky. I always say: there’s no such thing as coincidence; luck just happens to you. In that sense Benafsha was lucky that Mark and I could start the ball rolling. Subsequently, lots of things had to be done. To begin with, it took a long time before all the material was available. Then Nuffic started with the evaluation of her work. At the micro level, the programme started working with her. A lecturer from our team who knows the ins and outs of our entire curriculum screened her entire educational programme and wrote a recommendation based on this screening. Subsequently, the Examination Board studied her case. At the meso level, there was the management of our university of applied sciences, the International Office and Bureau Buitenland, which checks whether all conditions have been met for registration as a student. So there were a lot of lists of boxes to be ticked. But there were other issues as well: interim registration after October does not entitle you to student finance. Moreover, as a non-EU student you needed to have a bank account with € 10,000. Fortunately, Mark could guarantee that. All in all, the whole process took a lot of time and effort. We had to tick all the boxes one by one and in the end the Examination Board decided that she had to follow about 3 semesters’ worth of subjects to qualify for a diploma. Then she could start her studies with us.’
What was the value of this specific case?
‘I thought Benafsha’s story was a good test case for our university of applied sciences. We are likely to get more and more of such individual requests in the future. There is the group of Ukrainians, about whom national agreements have been made, including the conditions they have to meet for registration. That makes it easier. The national government gives permission, which is an important guarantee for a university of applied sciences. In this situation it was a test case of perseverance, which made it very clear what arrangements had to be made. And as I mentioned before, that was quite a lot. It took perseverance not only on the part of someone like Benafsha, but also stamina from us. Despite many struggles at all levels, we were able to stay the course and persevere to make sure she could come here to study. And apart from that, there was also a great deal of talking and emailing back and forth about the question who does what. We were aware that it was also important to look at the bigger picture in view of future developments.’
You mentioned that it’s rather unknown what Windesheim is already doing for newcomers? Can you elaborate on that?
I was referring mainly to the Language Bridging Programme (Taalschakeltraject, TST). This offers newcomers an opportunity to follow a 2-year educational programme, learn the language and get a diploma entitling them to admission to a degree programme in higher professional education (hbo). But there are more great initiatives: for Nt2 students (i.e. for whom Dutch is a second language) there is the Nt2 café, speed dates and meet-ups with hbo students are set up and they can get language support from the SSC (Student Support Centre). There are also programmes focusing on labour market participation, like the Work Experience project for highly educated refugees. There are quite a few great initiatives, but they are still rather isolated. The examples I just gave tie in nicely with the diversity and inclusion we are promoting in Windesheim Closer. These are good principles and it’s a reality we will be facing more and more often.’
Would you tell us a bit more about your personal motivation?
‘When I was 16 or 17, I had a social studies teacher who was also a theologist. This guy was such a great story-teller that his stories inspired me to become an aid worker. I ended up here by way of a career in health care and later on economics. But the feeling I had then was really my drive and it still is. I worked for the International Red Cross and the Boat Refugee Foundation and I regularly spend my holidays working as a volunteer on Lesbos. Refugee is such an umbrella term. Over there, every individual has a name and you talk to people and hear their distressing stories. It concerns people who were forced to leave hearth and home. They really had no choice but to leave their culture, family and everything they knew behind. To make a difference to these people, that’s what drives me. This theme is also addressed in the International Business programme. There are students doing internships with organizations like Saeed in Zwolle, where they work with residence permit holders. And, incidentally, one of their employees is a former student of ours. Business and commitment to the world don’t have to be mutually exclusive.’
And what about your future?
‘Eighteen months ago I took leave of the degree programme because I want to retire a bit sooner. Right now I still work for a day and a half and am a member of the Central Participation Council and the BML Unit Participation Council. I also recently completed my first deployment for PUM (Managers’ Deployment Programme) to Pakistan. I was there in the role of an expert at GIFT University, where they are eager to collaborate with the business community. Wonderful people and they’re really highly motivated. What I also saw there was the consequences of climate change, urban migration and desperation among farmers. I will be doing this more often in the future so as to use my knowledge and experience. I’m very grateful for all the things I’ve been able to do in my life and would like to do something in return, to give back.’