There is the Interim Evaluation 'A smarter Academic Year', (“Een Slimmer Collegejaar”), a national project in which improvements in workability and study feasibility in the curriculum are investigated. Key insights include:

1. The academic year is very long and can be shortened with a longer summer period and/or Christmas break. 
2. The number of test moments is very high and fewer tests and/or resits could/should be scheduled. 
3. The curriculum is very full. A less full curriculum that avoids filling the free space with mandatory new activities provides more peace of mind. 

The COR fully endorses these proposals for improvement, but would like to make a radical point related to this. The aim should not be to maintain a moderately functioning annual schedule (8-8-4) with some minor adjustments in advance. The UvA must look for a calendar that meets the conditions of a dosed schedule with improved study feasability: a shorter academic year with fewer tests/resits, and a more workable and less 'full' curriculum.

The current structure creates a constant and continuous pressure that is often experienced as unworkable for both students, and for teachers who have to teach consecutive blocks. At some faculties, the 8-8-4 structure is experienced as the main cause of work stress and study stress, whereas at other faculties the model apparently fits better with the work process. This makes clear that a revision of the academic year is not necessarily a “one-size-fits-all” model. However, the preconditions must be the same for everyone.

That is why the COR sets the condition that the new year schedule must be fairer for all lecturers and students. In the current system, there there are different education-free periods per faculty and/or study programme and/or subject, different numbers of resits, and differences in terms of opportunities for resits in the summer period.

8-8-4 was once introduced (despite major protests) to achieve uniformity, so students can take courses at another faculty and at other universities without any problems. But by the time 8-8-4 was introduced at the UvA, other universities had already decided on other year schedules. Student choices are also determined more strongly by time slots throughout the day, rather than the week in which a course starts. In addition, students also manage to take courses at other universities blessed with different schedules. Since regular education usually takes place during the day, and extracurricular courses (honours courses and electives) are usually scheduled in the evening, students can participate in education at locations other than their own. 

The fundamental issue with 8-8-4 is that it is based on the core premise of keeping room schedules manageable. However, the COR is of the opinion that at a university, education, didactics, work feasibility for teachers and study feasibility for students should be basis for a year schedule.

The uniformity (immutability) of 8-8-4 has actually led to all faculties making their own adjustments to make the schedule somewhat workable, which has created very large differences in year schedules and teacher and student load. 

• Why this plea from the COR now? Because this academic year the Educational Vision will be rewritten. As far as the COR is concerned, a new calendar must also be determined in the new Educational Vision.
• Why now? Since its introduction 10 years ago, which evoked a lot of resistance, a number of teething problems should have been resolved. Such as the interpretation of the four-week block, which is too short to meet all the conditions of testing, and is actually only suitable for a very limited type of subjects. That has not been successful so far. It is time to make other alternatives more concrete.
• Why now? Because last year, the Labor Inspectorate found that the workload for employees is too high, which is certainly (but not exclusively) related to the continuously high pace of 8-8-4. For students, study stress is also partly caused by 8-8-4.
• Why now? In the light of (future) government policy, it would also be useful if there were more opportunities for faculties to spread the pressure.

Because the Smarter Academic Year (“Een Slimmer Collegejaar”) project does not question the structure in which education is given, the COR wants an investigation into a revised annual schedule, with a number of concrete recommendations linked to it. We urge the Executive Board to make a decision about a new calendar before/on 1 September 2026, and the new calendar must be introduced in the academic year 2027-2028.