Now at the beginning of the semester, I have had the opportunity to participate in several conferences and talk about the future of education, including at Mid Sweden University's conference "Inspiration Day on the Future of Education and Working Methods".
There were many interesting questions raised about how higher education will develop and recover from the corona pandemic. In this blog post, I wanted to delve into the opportunities and concerns that SFS sees in the future.
Search pressure increases
Total 452,800 people applied for one or more education programs in the first selection in the fall semester of 2021, compared to 451,700 people in the fall of 2020. Even though we see a slowdown, it is a new record in the number of applicants. The number of full-time students in Swedish higher education has increased in the last three years and amounted to 311,800 in the 2019/20 academic year. This indicates that higher education is increasingly seen as an opportunity for more people, which is encouraging.
Teaching physically or online
The corona pandemic changed the conditions for teaching, participating in and implementing education. As a consequence of this rapid transition, I believe that there is still a need for increased resources and better conditions for higher education institutions to work with knowledge transfer within and between higher education institutions, in order to spread the best ways of how we work with high quality in teaching after the digital transition. The reality I see before me is an education that is combined physically and online, but this places different demands and competencies on the teaching staff and the infrastructure of the higher education institutions. There are several who share the view that the changes that have taken place will be permanent and that teaching will take place combined. This brings with it some new problems and issues, but the key is that the student's learning is put at the center and that teaching is conducted so that students learn and develop their abilities in the long and short term.
More universities
Recently, we have also seen more universities and I wonder how it affects research, the number of research students and doctoral students? It also affects the future of education. Contact with research: having scientifically grounded teaching staff is important for us students and I believe that this is something that universities need to work more actively with. Because unfortunately we see that in several subjects we have reduced the number of teacher-led hours and I believe 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 proximity to those who teach - regardless of whether it is online or physically.
Internationalization and mobility
Another observation that worries me is the lack of mobility. We see fewer and fewer people going on exchange, but its importance has not diminished. Being away strengthens you as a student in meeting others, interacting with hopefully new cultures and ways of learning. Here too, I would like to be clear that the opportunity for exchange exists. Of course, there are certain obstacles, but I believe we can overcome these. This applies, for example, to mobility windows in the programs. I believe that the education of the future will become increasingly international, and for these we must be there to promote exchange.
Almost a tenth of all students at Swedish universities and colleges are students from abroad. Last year, the number of exchange students decreased significantly due to the pandemic. How many and who choose to study in Sweden can be affected by events in the world. In the autumn of 2011, tuition fees were introduced in Sweden for so-called freemover students from outside the EU/EEA and Switzerland, which meant that fewer students from countries outside the EU applied to Sweden for university studies. Until before the pandemic, we had seen a decline, but for obvious reasons it has slowed down.
More Swedes have chosen to study at colleges and universities, but the number of incoming and outgoing students has fallen sharply. The higher education sector now has the opportunity to take new steps: think new and long-term when exchange programs resume. In addition, Brexit has happened and the UK later also chose to leave the Erasmus program. The UK is one of the most popular destinations and to remain so, we need to work on making it easy to study in the UK. The alternative is that other study destinations increase in popularity, but the alternative should not be that fewer people go abroad.
The need for university graduates
The distribution between the different subject areas has been about the same for the last five academic years and I think we will also see this trend in the future. We certainly hear about shortages in certain professions, but it takes time to build a structure to meet the need and here I see that it is important that what we students learn during the education stands up over time. I also believe that the important thing is the generic skills. Then this of course needs to be adapted to society, for example the mission within sustainable development and how we can all help in the transition that is required where higher education is a foundation for the knowledge society that takes us forward in development.
University Chancellor's Office, UKÄ, made a forecast for the labor market situation 2035 for 38 programmes within seven educational groups. The results show that the needs of the labour market are great in many areas and that the forecast for the number of higher education graduates risks not covering the needs. This means major challenges ahead, not only for the higher education institutions but also for the businesses concerned. It also means great opportunities for work in these areas. For most programmes in pedagogy and teacher training, a risk of increased labour shortages is assessed in 2035. The same also applies to the majority of programmes in health care and social care. In technology and manufacturing, a risk of labour shortages is assessed for certain specializations within the Master of Science degree in 2035. Last but not least, a risk of continued shortages of veterinarians is also assessed in 2035. The erosion and underfunding of higher education must come to an end so that those who are taught have real opportunities to undertake and complete the training – an education that must always be of high quality.