Jozef Marie Mathias "Jo" Ritzen (born 3 October 1945) is a retired Dutch politician of the Labour Party (PvdA) and economist.
Ritzen worked as researcher at the Delft Institute of Technology from July 1969 until June 1972 and at the Erasmus University Rotterdam from June 1972 until July 1976. Ritzen worked as a civil engineering consultant in
Bangladesh
Bangladesh (}, ), officially the People's Republic of Bangladesh, is a country in South Asia. It is the eighth-most populous country in the world, with a population exceeding 165 million people in an area of . Bangladesh is among the mo ...
from August 1976 until April 1978 and as a visiting professor of Education economics at the
University of California, Berkeley
The University of California, Berkeley (UC Berkeley, Berkeley, Cal, or California) is a public land-grant research university in Berkeley, California. Established in 1868 as the University of California, it is the state's first land-grant un ...
from September 1978 until May 1979. Ritzen worked as an associate professor of
Public economics
Public economics ''(or economics of the public sector)'' is the study of government policy through the lens of economic efficiency and equity. Public economics builds on the theory of welfare economics and is ultimately used as a tool to improve ...
Hedy d'Ancona
Hedwig "Hedy" d'Ancona (; born 1 October 1937) is a retired Dutch politician of the Labour Party (PvdA) and political activist.
d'Ancona applied at the University of Amsterdam in June 1956 majoring in Sociology and obtaining a Bachelor of Soc ...
Wim Kok
Willem "Wim" Kok (; 29 September 1938 – 20 October 2018) was a Dutch politician and trade union leader who served as Prime Minister of the Netherlands from 22 August 1994 until 22 July 2002.State Secretary for Education and Sciences
Job Cohen
Marius Job Cohen (; born 18 October 1947) is a retired Dutch politician and jurist who served as Mayor of Amsterdam from 2001 to 2010 and Leader of the Labour Party (PvdA) from 2010 to 2012.
Cohen studied Law at the University of Groningen obt ...
for the post of Minister of Education and Sciences in the new
cabinet
Cabinet or The Cabinet may refer to:
Furniture
* Cabinetry, a box-shaped piece of furniture with doors and/or drawers
* Display cabinet, a piece of furniture with one or more transparent glass sheets or transparent polycarbonate sheets
* Filin ...
but Cohen per his own request asked not to be considered for a cabinet post as his wife was diagnosed with
multiple sclerosis
Multiple (cerebral) sclerosis (MS), also known as encephalomyelitis disseminata or disseminated sclerosis, is the most common demyelinating disease, in which the insulating covers of nerve cells in the brain and spinal cord are damaged. This ...
. Kok subsequently approached Ritzen to continued in the post as the newly renamed Minister of Education, Culture and Science in the Cabinet Kok I, taking office on 22 August 1994. In December 1997 Ritzen announced his retirement from national politics and that he wouldn't stand for the election of 1998, the Cabinet Kok I was replaced by the Cabinet Kok II on 3 August 1998.
Biography
Education and academic career
Ritzen started in 1963 at Bernardinus College in Heerlen. In 1970 he obtained an
engineer's degree
An engineer's degree is an advanced academic degree in engineering which is conferred in Europe, some countries of Latin America, North Africa and a few institutions in the United States. The degree may require a thesis but always requires a non-a ...
in
physics
Physics is the natural science that studies matter, its fundamental constituents, its motion and behavior through space and time, and the related entities of energy and force. "Physical science is that department of knowledge which ...
PhD PHD or PhD may refer to:
* Doctor of Philosophy (PhD), an academic qualification
Entertainment
* '' PhD: Phantasy Degree'', a Korean comic series
* '' Piled Higher and Deeper'', a web comic
* Ph.D. (band), a 1980s British group
** Ph.D. (Ph.D. al ...
degree in 1976 from the
Erasmus Universiteit Rotterdam
Erasmus University Rotterdam (abbreviated as ''EUR'', nl, Erasmus Universiteit Rotterdam ) is a public research university located in Rotterdam, Netherlands. The university is named after Desiderius Erasmus Roterodamus, a 15th-century humanist ...
with the thesis "
Education
Education is a purposeful activity directed at achieving certain aims, such as transmitting knowledge or fostering skills and character traits. These aims may include the development of understanding, rationality, kindness, and honesty ...
,
economic growth
Economic growth can be defined as the increase or improvement in the inflation-adjusted market value of the goods and services produced by an economy in a financial year. Statisticians conventionally measure such growth as the percent rate o ...
, and income inequality metrics". The thesis received the Winkler Prins Prize as the best economics dissertation in the period 1975–1978.
Before entering politics, Ritzen worked in a variety of jobs: as a project consultant in former East Pakistan (now Bangladesh), as a lecturer in the economics of education at the
University of California, Berkeley
The University of California, Berkeley (UC Berkeley, Berkeley, Cal, or California) is a public land-grant research university in Berkeley, California. Established in 1868 as the University of California, it is the state's first land-grant un ...
, at the Katholieke Universiteit Nijmegen (now Radboud University), and as a full professor in the economics of education at the Erasmus Universiteit from 1981 to 1982. In 1988-1989 he was a visiting distinguished professor at the Robert M. La Follette Institute of Public Affairs at the University of Wisconsin-Madison in the United States. He has written or co-authored eleven books. Many articles written or co-authored by him are published in the fields of education, economics, public finance and development economics.
Politics
In 1989 he became Minister of Education and Sciences in the third Lubbers Cabinet (Christian Democrats-Social Democrats, Lubbers-Kok). In the same cabinet he was Minister of Welfare, Health, and Culture (including Sports) for three months in 1994. That same year, with the installation of the cabinet Kok 1 (Liberals, Social Liberals and Social Democrats), he became Minister of Education, Culture, and Sciences until 1998.
As a minister he introduced the OV-studentenkaart in 1990, a card giving free public transportation to students, and later the Prestatiebeurs, a new form of student financing where student grants would only be available for those who completed their studies. The LSVb (one of the major student unions) resisted both initiatives.
Ritzen contributed greatly to the reformation of the governance of Higher Education. Institutes of higher education would be governed by a governing board selected from the leading people of the major directions of life (business, justice, culture), excluding politicians. This board appoints the managing board of the university which has full authority and responsibility. This reform is sometimes recognized as the basis for the success of Dutch universities in international rankings in the early decades of the 21st century.
During his period in office, many parts of the Dutch education system were reformed: secondary education, through a law which made transitions from different streams easier (“basisvorming”), the second stage of secondary education with more emphasis on self-learning of students and vocational education (a law abbreviated as “WEB”).
Also, the science system was substantially modified amongst others by including public private programs, between industry and public research institutes.
Ritzen was the longest-serving Minister of Education in the EU and one of longest serving in the world.
In 1998, after his term as a Minister he became an adviser to the President of the World bank, Jim Wolfenson and later a vice presidents of the
World bank
The World Bank is an international financial institution that provides loans and grants to the governments of low- and middle-income countries for the purpose of pursuing capital projects. The World Bank is the collective name for the Inte ...
, serving in the Research Department (together with Chief Economists Joe Stiglitz and Nick Stern as) and as vice president for Human Development.
He left the World Bank to become president of Maastricht University in February 2003 until February 2011. During that period, Maastricht University grew to become one of the leading international teaching and research universities, with almost half of its students coming from abroad and problem-based learning as the primary educational method. In 2013, the university was ranked number 6 worldwide in the Times Higher Education Ranking of young (“under 50”) universities (established after 1963).
During his career he has made significant contributions to agencies such as UNESCO and OECD, especially in the field of education and social cohesion. He also served on the Supervisory Board of Educational Testing Service (Princeton) from 2002 to 2014 and to several Dutch firms from 1981 to 1989 (before becoming a Minister).
He is now honorary professor of Maastricht University, senior advisor to the International Institute of Labor Studies IZA in Bonn, member of the International Advisory Board of RANEPA (Moskou) and KAU (Jeddah), adviser to several ministers of education, Chair and Founder of Empower European Universities and Initiator of the Vibrant Europe Forum, whose goal is to contribute to the European Parliamentary Elections in the areas of innovation, higher education, research, labour market, greening and income equality policy. He is also the President of th Conflict and Education Learning Laboratory a non-profit foundation, registered in the Netherlands, which is dedicated to working for an international agreement to reduce divisive stereotypes in school textbooks.
Since 2015 he has been active as the chairman of the
International Museum for Family History
The Internationaal Museum voor Familiegeschiedenis (known in English as the International Museum for Family History, or in short "The Family Museum") is a museum located in the former Ursuline Convent in Eijsden, Netherlands. As a museum with a fo ...