Ground Force Does the Dutch Higher Education Gardens: Three Scenarios Revisited

This article shows the changes currently made to higher education in the Netherlands, and what they may mean for its future. Findings from a Delphi study were used to develop three scenarios for Dutch higher education in 2010. The Palatial Garden scenario combined little openness of the system with high governmental involvement, making it more ‘strict’ than the actual situation in the country. The Natural Garden was in all dimensions opposed to the Palatial Garden scenario. The Polder Garden scenario was in some respects a ‘zero option’ in that it was built on assumptions of continued, unchanged policies, though in a changing degree structure and in a changing context. Three years on, the scenarios are compared with recent policy plans. The authors conclude that actual developments followed their own path rather than any single one of the garden scenarios. Current policy plans in the Netherlands show signs of (contradictory) compromises between different policy drivers, such as globalisation and national policy, state steering and network society or higher education as a public good and as commodity.