Work
Before entering politics, Ritzen worked, among other places, at the Erasmus Universiteit, Katholieke Universiteit Nijmegen (now Radboud University), and at the University of California, Berkeley.
In 1989 he became Minister of Education and Sciences in the cabinet Lubbers 3. In the same cabinet he was Minister of Welfare, Health, and Culture for a month in 1994. That same year, with the installation of the cabinet Kok 1, he became Minister of Education, Culture, and Sciences.
As a minister he introduced the OV-studentenkaart in 1990, a card giving free public transportation to students, and the Prestatiebeurs, a new form of student financing. The introduction of the Prestatiebeurs lead to great resistance from the LSVb.
After his last ministership he became one of the 30 vicepresidents of the Worldbank.
He has been president of Universiteit Maastricht from 2003 until February 2011.
Read more about this topic: Jo Ritzen
Famous quotes containing the word work:
“... when we shall have our amendment to the Constitution of the United States, everyone will think it was always so, just exactly as many young people believe that all the privileges, all the freedom, all the enjoyments which woman now possesses were always hers. They have no idea of how every single inch of ground that she stands upon to-day has been gained by the hard work of some little handful of women of the past.”
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“When I consider thy heavens, the work of thy fingers, the moon and the stars, which thou hast ordained; what is man, that thou art mindful of him? and the son of man, that thou visitest him? For thou hast made him a little lower than the angels, and hast crowned him with glory and honour.”
—Bible: Hebrew Psalms, 8:2.
“Man was kreated a little lower than the angells and has bin gittin a little lower ever sinse.” (Josh Billings, His Sayings, ch. 28, 1865)
“If we notice a few errors in the work of a proven master, we may and even will often be correct; if we believe, however, that he is completely and utterly mistaken, we are in danger of missing his entire concept.”
—Franz Grillparzer (1791–1872)