The University Teaching Qualification (UTQ), known in Dutch as Basiskwalificatie Onderwijs (BKO), is a nationally recognised certificate of didactic competence for university educators.
At the University of Twente, all teaching staff are required to obtain the UTQ within three years of employment. It supports high-quality education and helps lecturers reflect on and develop their teaching practices.
Programme overview
The UTQ is a structured trajectory in which you develop and demonstrate five core teaching competencies. You do this through a combination of mandatory courses, self-study, and practical reflection, all culminating in a final portfolio assessment. The UTQ now also includes partial certificates: after successfully completing each course and its assignments, you receive a recognised certificate for that specific competence — valid across the 4TU Federation. These are the 5 competences:
Designing or Redesigning Education
Teaching and Supervising
Testing & Assessment
Evaluation of Education
Professionalisation
Competence
The lecturer can:
1. Designing or redesigning teaching
Explain how their course is embedded in the curriculum or degree programme as a whole.- Design teaching based on the principles of ‘constructive alignment’.
Design active, effective, and efficient learning methods and learning materials.
Design their teaching with respect to the specific (curricular) characteristics and needs of the students.
Design their teaching in a practically and logistically feasible (do-able) way.
2. Teaching and supervising
Prepare an educational meeting.
Conduct an educational meeting and reflect on their performance.
Supervise students, individually and in groups.
3. Assessment
Design and implement the assessment of student development and learning outcomes.
Analyse the assessment results and draw conclusions.
4. Evaluating teaching
Conduct an evaluation and collect information (data) purposefully to improve their teaching.
Analyse evaluation results, draw conclusions, and pinpoint areas for improvement.
5. Professionalization
Formulate their own vision on teaching and student learning.
Manage their work as a lecturer and can collaborate in a teaching team.
Reflect on their work as a lecturer and on their future professional development in teaching.
Application and admission
The UTQ is meant for all academic teaching staff at the UT. You can read more information about the roadmap and admission in the quick guide.
In the quick guide you can find an overview of the UTQ programme and the roadmap to qualification.
4TU REGULATIONS
The 4TU UTQ regulation describes the joined procedures, competences and the arbitration and appeal procedure in case of disagreement of the assessment result.
A 4TU UTQ (partial) exemption is given for qualifications that are equivalent to the UTQ. This exemption provides the same rights as a UTQ (partial) certificate. There are two types of exemption, a full UTQ exemption and partial exemptions for one or more UTQ competences.
From September 2025 on, the following qualifications will provide (partial) exemption:
First degree teacher: exemption for 1, 2a, 2b and 3.
Second degree teacher: exemption for 2a, 2b and 3.
Minor ‘Leren Lesgeven’ (second degree teacher): exemption for 2a, 2b and 3.
For all other comparable (international) certificates: this will be considered on a case-by-case basis.
Exemption for competence 3 (BKE) is only granted in exceptional cases.
Full UTQ exemption
Requests for exemption are submitted via the HR staff member, the lecturer or the UTQ faculty supervisor, and are sent to the CELT UTQ coordinator. An interview with the UTQ coordinator can be part of the UTQ exemption process. If a full UTQ exemption is granted, no UTQ certificate will be issued. If a lecturer qualifies for a full exemption, the UTQ coordinator will submit a recommendation to the relevant faculty dean via HR. The exemption is at the discretion of the dean.
Partial UTQ exemption(s)
Requests for (partial) exemption must be submitted to the UTQ coordinator. An interview with the UTQ coordinator can be part of the UTQ exemption process. If the lecturer is eligible for a partial exemption, they will receive an official email. They can then upload this email to their UTQ files (Canvas).
Contact information
For more information about the University Teaching Qualification (UTQ), please contact:
