This morning, the government presented its budget proposal for 2018. The only real investments in higher education are about more education places. The proposal does not otherwise contain any major surprises that affect higher education. Underfunded education remains underfunded. The government shows that they see higher education pedagogy as a non-issue, despite the fact that pedagogy is a central piece of the puzzle in a high-quality education. Investing only in volume and not content gives the impression that the government primarily sees higher education as a labor market policy measure. However, there are some parts of the autumn budget that particularly affect the conditions for quality in higher education.
The government is extending the emergency reinforcement for the humanities, social sciences, theology and law. This eliminates the threat of a drastic reduction in funding for about 40% of all university students. The current "quality reinforcement" for the most acutely underfunded educations was introduced in 2016 and would apply until 2018. The government now announces that the increase will be more long-lasting. This is of course good, but to call it an "investment" is misleading.
Higher education pedagogy is not mentioned. SFS has long emphasized the importance of increasing the pedagogical competence in the university as part of raising quality. When the government released its research bill a year ago, it received criticism from several quarters that the pedagogy was not given any space. Critics seem to have spoken for deaf ears. In the bill's one hundred pages about universities and colleges, pedagogy is not mentioned once.
Despite harsh criticism: research funding is beginning to be distributed based on collaboration. Less than a year ago, Vinnova presented a model for measuring and distributing resources based on collaboration between higher education institutions and the rest of society. Many consultative bodies were strongly critical of the model and said that the report's conclusions were poorly substantiated. The very ambition to allocate resources based on a measure of collaboration was also harshly criticized. Despite this, the government unfortunately chooses to proceed with the proposal. The timing is particularly poor because at the same time a more comprehensive investigation of the resource allocation for higher education is underway.
Despite the authority's recommendations: Student influence is not strengthened. In the spring, the University Chancellor's Office announced that the state subsidy for student influence had needed to be tripled or quadrupled in order to give the student unions reasonable conditions for carrying out their statutory assignment. At the same time, there is a consensus in the sector that student influence is an important quality aspect that contributes to improving education. The responsible minister has also repeatedly pointed this out. However, the government chooses to wait.
Not everything is negative. The study grant is increased by SEK 450 per month. A strengthening of the students' health insurance is underway. But the budget bill presented by the government today leaves much to be desired. The scope for reform has been large, but the government still seems to consider that students should be content with a little.