If you have received a letter from the CAK (CAK - Centraal Administratiekantoor, is the government organisation that administers Dutch health insurance) that say that you are ‘not insured’, it means that you do not have health insurance with a Dutch health insurer. 

Dutch basic/public health insurance is compulsory for people who work in the Netherlands. This health insurance is different from the International Insurance that international students have. 

If you have a part-time job or if you are doing an internship for which you are paid at least as much as the Dutch minimum wage (click here for more information on the minimum wage), you are required to take out a Dutch basic/public health insurance. Even if you have not received a letter from CAK, you are strongly advised to take out the health insurance or risk getting a fine of hundreds of euros. If you do receive the letter from CAK, please take action within the 3 months or any given period indicated in the letter. 

However, if you work on a self-employed basis or if you have received the letter from CAK incorrectly (because you don't have a part-time job or paid internship), or if you are in doubt whether you really need to arrange for a Dutch basic/public health insurance for yourself, you can contact SVB and start the Wlz assessment (also called the SVB investigation). You can do so by following the instructions below: Keep in mind that it might take 6-8 weeks before you receive the outcome of the Wlz assessment. Therefore, take action immediately after receiving the letter from the CAK.

1) Contact the Sociale Verzekeringsbank (SVB) to request (free of charge) an investigation of your insurance position under the Wlz scheme. For this request, you can either do (A) or (B):

(A) Send by post: Complete the pdf document attached below Assessment of Wlz Insurance Position form (pdf) and send it together with all necessary documentary evidence to: SVB, Postbus 18607, 3501 CR Utrecht.

OR

(B) Do it online. Click on this link Requesting an assessment of your Wlz insurance position online, and login using your DigiD. You can then submit your application quickly and easily.

2) Make a copy of the completed and signed 'Assessment of Wlz insurance position' form and send it immediately to the CAK as this proves that you have taken the necessary action. 

3) If the SVB decision is that you are not to be insured (that means you don’t have to take the Dutch Health Insurance), send a copy of the decision from SVB to the CAK. Use this Contact Form and choose the option ‘regeling onverzekerden’. CAK will then close your file and you can continue with your international health insurance (AON ICS).

4) If the outcome of the Wlz assessment states that you are to be insured with a Dutch public health insurance, do so immediately within the time frame given by the CAK. 

Yes, it is possible to do a part-time internship, as long as you have fulfilled the academic requirements written in EEG Part 7. The duration of the Work Placement is a minimum of 3 months full-time, therefore, the part-time Work Placement should have equivalent working hours. 

At Wittenborg, we have modules which help you develop your English Language competency. These are as follows: 
a) Mandatory PDP (Personal Development Planning) module which includes Academic English, as well as TIPS (Training in Interpersonal Skills) module. These two modules are mandatory for Phase 1 and Phase 2 Bachelor students but optional for Master students. These modules help you to develop your academic writing skills as well as presentation skills. You will have opportunities to practice these skills by participating in the lessons, activities and seminars.
b) For students who failed the Support English Assessment (the Diagnostic Writing Test carried out during Introduction Day), they have to attend the Support English module. This support module will help to raise your English standards to a level where the general English is solid enough to eventually incorporate the more specific skills of Academic English.

Apart from the above, you can also do your own self-study through relevant reading materials or referring to English/Grammar/Vocabulary online sources. Try the following:
i) Check the EEG Part 5a Academic Writing Handbook for guides on the language and how to do referencing 

ii) Read this News article which gives suggestions on how you can improve your English

iii) Visit the website BBC: Go the Distance: Academic Writing

iv) Visit the website Harvard College Writing Centre: Strategies for Essay Writing

If you need further help, contact your English teacher or your process tutor/study advisor.

Check the ‘Match Overview’ of the Originality Report (picture shown below) and take note of sources which have more than 1% similarity. Make changes to your text, not only to lower your overall similarity score but also to lower the similarity of each source higher than 1%. Here are some suggestions on what you can do:

1) Remove or change strings of commonly used phrases or text (5-8 words) such as 'Sustainability is important for the environment', as such phrase is very common in the internet and will show up in the similarity score.

2) Put all exact words in quotation marks, or in an indented paragraph. Then use the filter key in Turnitin and exclude 'quotes' and 'bibliography'. (Refer to this link on how to use the filter function: https://help.turnitin.com/ithenticate/ithenticate-user/the-similarity-report/filters-and-exclusions.htm). However, a better way is to paraphrase everything in your own words, even if it is a definition, and provide the references. Make sure you don't just find synonyms of words or change few words here and there because Turnitin can detect similarity in sentences too.

3) Check the individual percentages of the sources. If the percentage for one or more of the sources are 2% or more (see the example in the picture below), reduce or paraphrase the text from that source. For example, referring to the picture below, reduce text from Sources no. 1, 2, 3 and 4.

 These are some ways in which you can reduce the similarity score, but take note that a low similarity score does not definitely mean that your assignment is plagiarism-free. In addition to the above, you have to ensure that you have not committed any of the possible cases of plagiarism. For this, you have to check the EEG Part 5b. You can also refer to the attached document 'A Guide to Plagiarism - for students' on how to avoid plagiarism. 

Please know that the arrangement of a study finance/ study loan is always between the student and DUO. So if you have any questions whether you are entitled to receive study finance/ study loan in the Netherlands as a foreign student or regarding your monthly allowance, please check the Rijksoverheid website and/ or the DUO website. In case you are unable to find the answers you are looking for on any of the websites, you are advised to give DUO a call.

If you are entitled to apply for a DUO study loan/study finance, you can request a Tuition Fee Statement form ("Verklaring Instellingscollegegeld" form) from us, by (digitally) completing only section 1 of the attached form and sending it to registrar@wittenborg.eu. We will complete the rest of the form for you, sign and stamp it, and send it back to you by email so that you can upload it in your "Mijn DUO". Or in case of any complications with the upload, send it by email to DUO via documenten@duo.nl.

Take note that this whole process goes together with your enrolment in our system, as well as the DUO system. That is why we need to check from our system if you are enrolled for the period you have provided to DUO a Tuition Fee Statement form for. If for whatever reason you have not/ cannot be enrolled yet for the new period as stated in the form (e.g. because of any outstanding fees), we will contact you. 

Two important things to keep in mind:

• Please only request a Tuition Fee Statement form from us, at the moment you have received a new invoice from us, for the new period of your enrolment. If you have still not received an invoice from us for the new period of your enrolment, by latest one month before your current enrolment will end, please send an email to registrar@wittenborg.eu.
• Please keep in mind that you do not receive a Tuition Fee Statement form automatically from us, without a request by email, even if we have previously provided you with one. So please do not forget to send us an email (registrar@wittenborg.eu) on time with your request, as it is your own responsibility to make sure that all the arrangements have been taken care of ahead of time.
  

No, you cannot do an internship/work placement after graduation. For an internship in the Netherlands, Dutch law requires applicants to be either a European Citizen OR to be currently enrolled in an educational institution as a student. It should be noted that after graduation, you will in general no longer be able to take an internship in the Netherlands. Your Work Placement ending date must be within the period of your registration at Wittenborg. 

Wittenborg University student housing provides you with the basics items before you move in. This means you won’t need to carry items like a bed, wardrobe, bed cover/ bed sheets, pillow and pillow cover. There is also a blanket provided by Wittenborg student housing department. Some useful things like cups, bowl and plate is provided for each student on arrival in the student housing.

It is always worthy to check on Wittenborg’s website what your accommodation includes. Please click on Wittenborg Student Housing Fact Sheet for more information.

Yes, we have created Project week registrations for each block in the course area. Once you have enrolled yourself in the Project week course area, you would be able to see the Registration link. The deadline is Monday of Lesson Week 1 at 16:00. If you missed the deadline to register yourself, you will not be allowed to participate in the Project week for that block.

Please note that enrollment and registration for project weeks are not the same. You can only do the registration after enrolling in to the course area.

You can find more information on how to take out the Dutch public health insurance from here: https://www.studyinholland.nl/plan-your-stay/insurance.

After you have taken the Dutch basic/public health insurance, you must inform Wittenborg's Registrar Department (registrar@wittenborg.eu) about your new insurance by completing this online form 'Apply/Update Insurance Form'.

If you have a low income, you can apply for Dutch healthcare allowance (or benefits) called zorgtoeslag after buying your insurance. Click on the links below to find out more about this benefit.

Healthcare Allowance

Dutch Healthcare Benefit

It is your responsibility to ensure that the electronic submission of your work is successful and completed on time.

1. Different assessments may have different compulsory requirements that will activate the upload link. These requirements are visible to students in the course area. Failure to fulfil these criteria will not permit you to submit your work
2. We strongly recommend that the final submission to be done at least 30 minutes before the deadline. Leaving the submission for the last minutes could result in failure to submit your work. If you’re not sure what the deadline date and time is click on the submission link where the details will be displayed
3. In case of technical issues, please contact Helpdesk only.
4. Make sure you are submitting the correct file type. We recommend to upload word files to Turn-it-in.
5. Once you have submitted your assignment, make sure the submission was successful. You will receive an email confirmation if the submission to Turn-it-in was successful (in your university email address). You can also click on the submission link to ensure if the file listed/visible is the correct file.

Not knowing what is expected of you is not an excuse for a late submission, make sure you understand what to do, well before the deadline and read the Assignment Submission Help provided.

If you are registered in the Netherlands, it is compulsory for you to take out Dutch health insurance. You should still keep your insurance even if you are temporarily abroad. Healthcare insurance from your home country is not sufficient.

From the academic year 2022-2023, you have to submit the clearance form before submitting your final GA/FP. Please follow the instructions given in the online area of when and how to submit the form. 

Please check this link GA/FP Clearance Form (office.com). Note that the clearance form gives an indication of the below eligibilities: 

• A student has completed all the required exams except the GA/FP and has achieved 220 European Credits for Bachelors, and 65 European Credits for Masters.
• All liabilities like library books and any other borrowed materials are returned by the student. 
• There are no financial dues to Wittenborg University of Applied Sciences by the student. 

Please refer to the EEG Part 8 for more information.

A ticketing system is used at Helpdesk and you can easily create a ticket for different types of issues that may incur. A direct link to the Helpdesk is available on your dashboard on Wittenborg-Online, alternatively you can click here.

A residence gap is an interruption in your continuous stay and may cause problems later on if you want to apply for a Dutch permanent residence. In general, a residence permit gap has affects in the longer term, if you decide to apply for a Dutch permanent residence permit in the future. In order to apply for a permanent residence permit, one of the requirements is that you have legally resided in the Netherlands for an uninterrupted period of five years or more before you make the permanent residence permit application. This means that you require to have had a valid residence permit for the full five years, without interruptions or gaps within this period. You have thus always applied for extension of your residence permit on time. Another requirement is that within these five consecutive years you have not stayed outside the Netherlands for six or more consecutive months, or three years in a row for four or more consecutive months.

The consequence of a residence permit gap is that the period of legal residence in the Netherlands before this gap will not be taken into consideration. This means that you will have to start again building up a five-year uninterrupted period in the Netherlands to obtain permanent residency.

For example: If your first residence permit is issued from 01-09-2009 till 31-08-2013, and if you apply for residence permit extension later than your expiration date (31-08-2013), then residency gap is created, and the IND starts counting from that day onwards -- that day your application form is received by the IND. Even a single day difference is recognised as a residency gap.

For more information and other requirements for applying the permanent residence permit, please visit: https://ind.nl/en/permanent-residence/Pages/permanent-residence-after-5-years.aspx

Source: https://ind.nl

Second foreign language modules are offered when there is enough interest from students. We need minimum 5 students to offer the module.

At the moment you can choose from the following foreign language modules:

• Dutch
• German
• Spanish
• French

Please see below the flowchart for the procedure of GAs/Final Projects.

Source: www.wittenborg-online.com

Please see below the flowchart for the procedure of Research proposals.

Source: Part of the EEG

The submission deadlines are set a year in advance and can always be seen in the online area. Please note that these dates cannot be changed/extended.

Below is an example for Block 6:

We have the same information in the EEG and you can find it in Part 8 of the EEG

Source: Part 8 of the EEG