In order not to lose the quality of education and ultimately not lose students or risk eroding trust in Swedish education, the education needs to maintain at least as good a quality as before the pandemic.
Good pedagogy in higher education is absolutely crucial for high educational quality and one of the most important quality factors in higher education. This is what students believe and research shows. Higher education should convey critical thinking, independent reflection and a nuanced analytical ability to the student. That teachers apply a pedagogy intended for the requirements of the higher education institution is a prerequisite for good teaching. Students need to meet teachers who are both scientifically and pedagogically competent, but unfortunately today it is too rarely worthwhile for a teacher to invest in developing their teaching.
We students are adamant that this is the core regardless of whether the teaching is online or physical. And I believe that this is also what we see in the future: teachers who are rooted in research and who have pedagogical training. In order to be skilled in both research and higher education teaching, teaching staff need to be given good conditions for this. This requires both conscious political control, but also active work from the management of the higher education institutions. This includes a well-functioning resource allocation system for education and research from the state and within the higher education institution to create incentives for teachers to devote themselves to both education and research. In addition, access to skills development for teachers, clear career paths and functional security for the higher education institution's staff is needed.
A merit system that rewards pedagogically skilled teachers to ensure competence and commitment could also provide incentives to work for higher quality in teaching, both now and after the pandemic. Research supports student-active learning, which means that students construct science through active reflection. This leads to deeper understanding, better anchoring of knowledge and students practicing their ability to think critically and independently. If examinations are only designed in a way that rewards memorization, students often choose superficial learning. The Bologna Process includes promoting student-centered learning that ultimately leads to student-active teaching.
Just as politicians have worked to increase the number of qualified teachers in primary and secondary schools, teaching staff in higher education should also be qualified. With the autonomy reform, the Higher Education Ordinance no longer requires teachers to undergo higher education teaching training. The requirement for higher education teaching training should therefore be reintroduced in the Higher Education Ordinance and updated to a requirement of ten weeks. I am well aware that time is not everything, what is important is its quality and then the conditions also need to be improved.
It is well known that pedagogical qualifications are important for pedagogical development to take place. Habitual patterns in higher education are difficult to change and to succeed, systematic work is required. In order for all students, regardless of the institution, to be able to receive better teaching and education, it is necessary that the national level encourages the introduction of a pedagogical qualifications system at all higher education institutions. SFS therefore wants to see the government provide a national authority with funds to support higher education institutions in developing pedagogical reward systems.
As a consequence of the corona pandemic, it is seen that resources and prerequisites for higher education institutions to work with knowledge transfer are needed within and between higher education institutions, in order to spread the best ways of working with high quality in teaching after the digital transition.
Recently, we have also seen more universities and I wonder how this affects research, the number of research students and with that the number of doctoral students? Because this also affects the future of education. Contact with research, with having scientifically grounded teaching staff is important for us students and I also think that this is something that universities need to work on. Because unfortunately we see that in several subjects we have reduced the number of teacher-led hours and I think this will have a negative impact on education. Of course, the quality of education is the most important thing and not the number of hours that we meet with our teachers, but it is still important that we have a closeness to those who teach – regardless of whether it is online or physically.