ABSTRACT
Indonesia declared independence on 17 August 1945. After an unsuccessful war with the nationalists, the Netherlands transferred sovereignty on 27 December 1949, except for West New Guinea. Suriname became independent on 25 November 1975. Large-scale decolonisation processes also took place in Africa. Initially, the West referred to these nations as ‘underdeveloped’, but this negatively charged term was quickly replaced by the more positive notion of ‘developing countries’. The world was then divided into the First World (the West, i.e. Europe and America), the Second World (countries behind the Iron Curtain) and the amorphous group of the Third World. And if there are developing countries with developing educational systems, there is a logical framework of an ethical (development) policy that universities in the First World, including those in Utrecht, can assist in such development.
