The University attaches great value to excellence of teaching. Such teaching can only be provided by teachers who excel both in research and teaching. This is why there is an active policy to raise the level of the teaching skills of teachers and keep it at a high level. If a staff member satisfies the required level, he or she will receive a basic teaching qualification (BKO: basiskwalificatie onderwijs).
The BKO is a certificate issued to university teachers (assistant and associate professors, UHDs and professors) when they have acquired sufficient teaching competences. The conditions for a BKO were set in 2008 and are supported by all Dutch universities. The BKO also qualifies as proof of sufficient teaching competence in job interviews at foreign institutions. A BKO has significant added value for university personnel.
All staff who join the University with tenure as a teacher or tenure track employee, assistant professor, UHD or professor, and who do not have a BKO, must acquire one. Other staff, for example those on a temporary contract can follow a BKO programme after discussing the matter with their immediate superior and their teaching director. After 1 January 2012, having a BKO will be compulsory for all promotions.
The faculty and/or directors of the teaching institutes will establish the trajectory towards the BKO. During an intake interview, teaching competences will be outlined and the individual BKO programme agreed upon. The BKO programme consists of a supervision part and a training part. To acquire the BKO the staff member must take part in the supervision element. The most important element of the supervision part is the requirement that the staff member designs or renovates a module. This will reveal whether the teacher can design and give a module in a didactically responsible way. A portfolio will be kept during the supervision part, listing the results which will qualify as proof of the teaching competences. The results are recorded in this personal dossier. The necessity of participating inthe training part of the BKO depends on the teaching experience of the staff member.
Within the framework of quality assurance, courses taught by individual staff are evaluated during the regular meetings of the educational committees. These evaluations are discussed during career development and appraisal interviews and may lead to a teacher being requested to acquire additional didactic skills.
