Foundation year students are included in two of SFS's priority issues for the 2024/25 financial year: “The conditions for student unions” and “A sustainable student economy”. SFS will therefore work to ensure that students in qualification-granting and university-introducing education are given the same opportunities to influence their education and have the same opportunities and rights to study funds and student housing as other students. We do this, among other things, by highlighting the problems that exist for the Riksdag politicians we meet and providing them with supporting information.
In this blog post, we go through various problems that exist for foundation year students, and what needs to be done to fix them.
Briefly about the base year
Before we go into the problems that exist, we would like to take the opportunity to provide a brief introduction to the base year.
A foundation year is a supplementary and preparatory education that provides eligibility for science or technical programs in higher education, such as engineering programs. However, the foundation year is not subject to the same rules and requirements as other higher education programs, even though it is an education provided by universities and colleges.
The base year has a special regulation
Unlike regular higher education, which is regulated by the Higher Education Ordinance (1993:100), the base year is instead governed by the Ordinance (2018:1519) on qualification-granting and university-introducing education. The base year ordinance applies part of the Higher Education Ordinance (see Section 14), but not all of it. Since the Ordinance on qualification-granting and university-introducing education specifies certain sections of the Higher Education Ordinance but not others, lawyers believe that the sections that are not specified cannot be applied to the base year either.
Foundation year students have higher requirements for academic results than other students.
A major problem is that the Central Student Support Board, CSN, has stricter rules for study result requirements for students in the base year than for other students. This is because pre-education credits, which are used in the base year instead of higher education credits, are not regulated in any statute. Because of this, CSN believes that they cannot define pre-education credits in their regulations, which also means that CSN cannot currently specify a percentage requirement for study results.
For all higher education programmes, the requirement to be eligible to apply for study funding again after a completed period of study is that you have passed 62,5 percent of the higher education credits for which you have applied for study funding during the first 40 weeks of studies (which corresponds to one year of studies), and thereafter the requirement is to pass 75 percent. For foundation year students, however, it is required that you have passed all courses without delaying your studies, in order to be eligible to apply for study funding again.
This means that there are students who have completed the foundation year but who do not receive study grants when they then begin a higher education program, because they have not passed 100 percent of the foundation year courses.
It is unreasonable that the requirement for study results is higher for foundation year students than for other university students, especially when it can have serious consequences for the students and risks affecting their opportunities to pursue studies. Study funding is a prerequisite for many students to actually be able to study, and the requirement for study results for the foundation year can lead to poorer throughput as a result of dropouts when the students subsequently begin university studies and cannot receive more study funding.
There is also a high demand for STEM skills from the business sector, and the government has also directed special efforts towards this area. The current requirement for study results for foundation year students undermines this, as the foundation year is an important entry point to many STEM educations.
Further investigation is needed
Unfortunately, the problem has no quick solution. The issue of the requirement for study results for foundation year students is regulated by a complex set of regulations where different assessments have been made as to whether it can be addressed through a change in CSN's regulations or whether an amendment to the Student Financial Aid Ordinance is needed.
SFS therefore proposes that CSN be tasked with investigating the requirement for study results for foundation year students and its negative consequences in its current form, and that CSN submit proposals for, for example, appropriate changes to the ordinance and how CSN's regulations can be updated.
Foundation year students do not have student status
Another major problem is that foundation year students do not have the status of students. Foundation year students are not counted as students in Chapter 1, Section 4 of the Higher Education Ordinance. The Higher Education Ordinance's definition of what is meant by a student also affects the interpretation of the Higher Education Act (1992:1434). This has several negative effects, primarily that foundation year students do not have the right to influence and that the higher education institution cannot take disciplinary action if necessary.
Foundation year students lack the right to student representation and student influence
As mentioned above, foundation year students have no legal right to influence or student representation, and this is due to current regulations. Here we go into more detail and explain how this is stated in the Higher Education Act and the Higher Education Ordinance.
Chapter 1, Section 4 a of the Higher Education Act states that students shall have the right to exercise influence over education at higher education institutions, and Chapter 4, Sections 8-15 regulate student unions, for example, that student unions shall conduct student monitoring and that students have the right to be members of a student union.
Foundation year students, however, are not covered by Chapter 1, Section 4 a or Chapter 4, Sections 8-15 of the Higher Education Act. This is because foundation year students are not included in the definition of what is meant by “student” in Chapter 1, Section 4 of the Higher Education Ordinance.
Nor do the rules in the Higher Education Ordinance concerning students' democratic rights, i.e. appointing members of the board and student representatives (Chapter 1, Section 7) and being allowed to use the university's premises as a student association (Chapter 1, Section 13), apply to foundation year students.
Most student unions still accept foundation year students as members and want to be able to represent them, but there is no clear legal basis for this. The student unions also do not receive any extra compensation for the foundation year students they choose to represent.
Disciplinary measures cannot be directed against foundation year students.
Another problem that also depends on current regulations is that disciplinary measures cannot be directed against foundation year students.
Disciplinary measures are regulated in Chapter 10 of the Higher Education Ordinance, and do not apply to foundation year students. The higher education institutions may therefore not restrict the foundation year student's access to teaching and the higher education institution's premises. In practice, this means that a foundation year student cannot be suspended even if he or she acts threateningly towards another student or a teacher. This therefore constitutes both a study and work environment issue.
Enroll foundation year students in the Higher Education Act
To overcome the problems, SFS proposes that an addition be made to the Higher Education Ordinance, Chapter 1, Section 4, stating that even those who have been admitted to qualification-granting education according to the Ordinance (2018:1519) on qualification-granting and higher education introductory education are to be equated with students.
This change would mean that foundation year students would be entitled to student influence and that they could be subject to disciplinary matters.
Foundation year students are not allowed to live in student housing.
Another problem that affects many is that foundation year students are not always allowed to live in student housing.
The rules in the Higher Education Ordinance that state that studies shall provide higher education credits (Chapter 6, Section 2) do not apply to the base year. Several higher education institutions use pre-education credits instead. One problem that arises is that housing companies that rent out student housing require that the student be registered for a certain number of higher education credits in order to live in the student housing. Housing companies can choose to make exceptions for base year students, but it is common for them not to do so. This is the case in Umeå, for example. These base year students therefore do not have the opportunity to live in student housing.