Programme Committees

Each PC consists of 6, 8 or 10 members, half staff members and half students. The term for student members is one year and the term for staff members is two years. Members can be reappointed twice. Most PCs have an executive committee consisting of one student member, one staff and the programme director. The regulations may be different for the joint degrees.

Overview of duties and authorities

A Programme Committee has among others the following duties and authorities, within the setting of corporate WUR strategies, policies and regulations:

• annually evaluating the quality of the education provided in the programme and encouraging quality enhancement;
• defining a coherent curriculum of a programme which meets the learning outcomes and evaluating learning outcomes of individual courses;
• signalling if the entire set of courses has sufficient scientific content, meets the needs of the professional field and offers a sufficient variety of learning methods;
• annually approving certain paragraphs of the Education and Examination Regulations (EER) and advise on other paragraphs;
• guarantee a proper execution of the EER;
• representing the programme during the visitation process by the Accreditation Organisation of the Netherlands and Flanders (NVAO).

The PC also advises on topics that relate directly to the quality of education in the degree programmes, such as academic skills and setting a numerus fixus for programmes.

Accountability

Each year, the Programme Committee reports to the Board of Education the quality of education in the accompanying degree programmes by means of a report on ‘Plans for enhancement’.