Today it has been a month since October 18, when the new government took office and Mats Persson was appointed Minister of Education. SFS was positive that the new minister had a background in the higher education sector and also experience as an economic policy spokesperson. University funding is one of the most important issues for the Minister of Education to deal with.
- Even before the formation of the government, it was clear through the Tidö Agreement that the government wanted to increase the governance of certain university educations, with new detailed requirements within the teacher training courses and within the sociological training courses. The increasingly strict control of the content of education is a threat to academic freedom.
- On 7 November, the government presented a budget with cuts in student education grants and fewer education places. The governing parties also broke their previous promises not to raise the interest rate on our student loans. Smaller, worse and more expensive, is that what we have to look forward to in the coming years?
- The 9th of November the minister accused students of pushing an identity politics agenda and silent teachers. He suggested that the problem is so widespread that it needs to be mapped. In reality, however, there are no examples of students censoring teachers, but at most students who have reported incidents to the university so that the university has to deal with it. At the same time, the government skimps on the grants for student influence and does not count up the student unions' funding at all. We would like the Minister of Education to value the student perspective more highly. After all, does the Prime Minister agree that the education is for the students? .
The new Minister of Education has still not met with SFS, despite repeated invitations, and without talking to the students, it is not surprising if some proposals do not quite match what the students are asking for. But it needs to get better from now on.
It's been a month, Mats Persson, now you're no longer new to the job. We expect that the Prime Minister will soon agree to a meeting so that we can talk together about what policies Sweden as a country of education needs, how we can build a strong nation of knowledge.