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:
“What saved me then? Nothing but pregnancy. And each time after I had given birth to my work my life hung suspended by a thin thread.”
—Friedrich Nietzsche (1844–1900)
“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)
“By this contrivance the machinery of my work is of a species by itself; two contrary motions are introduced into it, and reconciled, which were thought to be at variance with each other. In a word, my work is digressive, and it is progressive too,—and at the same time.”
—Laurence Sterne (1713–1768)