Yesterday I participated in the University and College Council's conference Quality driven, "A day on how we find the way forward, to broaden recruitment to and promote equal treatment in higher education". In the concluding panel discussion with UHR's Director General Karin Röding, Martin Hellström, Rector of University West, moderated by Johannes Hylander, it was clear to me: The issue of access to higher education for to the is a question we should have already found the answers to, but what we are seeing right now - during the ongoing corona pandemic - is that student unions, university management and heads of government are committed to the individual. For those who have left high school and who want to apply to the academy, for those who have been forced to leave a secure job and all other prospective and current students and doctoral students: it is the individual and everyone's right to higher education we are fighting for.
One step in this is that study and career guidance needs to be improved. To reach out to different groups about the usefulness of higher education and what paths there are to the university. In upper secondary schools, all students should receive individual support and the opportunity to discuss their future and their educational opportunities. The study guide should already be available to offer information and conversations about the possibility of higher studies. This is important not only for young people, but if we are to ensure the promotion of lifelong learning. Knowledge and information in this way can be a way to help and encourage people from inexperienced homes to choose higher education and to break gender stereotyped educational patterns.
The fact that almost every second third-year student in upper secondary school has knowledge of the study grant worries me. I believe that we need to break prejudices about the study grant and the fact that some do not dare to take out a loan and instead work alongside full-time studies. Working alongside can take focus away from the education, which in turn risks contributing to mental illness and dropout - something that I experience as wrong because the Swedish study grant is advantageous. It is certainly not perfect in its current form and can be developed, but basically it is a good system.
There are major differences in study plans between different groups. Men, people born in Sweden, people who study vocational programs and people with low-educated parents plan to study at the university to a lesser extent. The same differences that are found in the official statistics on who studies at the university, are already in high school students' future plans. It should be interests and driving forces that govern, not gender, where you were born, functionality or socio-economic background. I believe that both society and the higher education institutions must work hard with both broadened recruitment and broadened participation to encourage all groups to start studying, but also to keep them in studies to prevent dropouts from today's overrepresented groups. The social bias in recruitment to higher education is a problem.
I do not like to categorize individuals, but what the studies whose results were presented at the conference show is that there are individuals and groups where the information about post-secondary studies does not reach and attract. There is a need for both a cultural difference in how we meet young people as well as study information without value in the individual's background.