SFS chairman Jacob Färnert responds to the debate article The college should maintain the educational qualifications by Magnus Hoppe in The University Teacher.
Like the debater, I am a big supporter of collegial accountability in academia. That is my basic view of how we should handle issues in our sector, but with free governance also comes responsibility. When it comes to the higher education pedagogic issues, I would like to state that there are tendencies that indicate that the college has not taken its full responsibility. The stories that the debater exposes speak for it, but there are examples all over the country. There are several institutions of higher education that do not follow the Swedish University and College Association's, SUHF's, recommendations that all employed teachers must undergo at least ten weeks of training in higher education pedagogy. I am in favor of collegiality, but I am not ready to abandon the principle that further education leads to development. A strengthening of the collegial influence can take place without throwing pedagogical development work in the trash.
Read the full article in Universitetslararen.se.