SFS new presidium Jacob Färnert and Klara Dryselius summarize Almedalen 2023, which was packed with student and higher education politics!
One of the last parts of the 2022/23 financial year for SFS was to go to Almedalen! It is a unique meeting place where politicians, organizations and stakeholders from all over the country gather to discuss social issues. In this region, there are several activities that deal with student and higher education policy and we are pleased that there is a great interest in the higher education sector, higher education, research and skills supply. It is also great that we are invited to several contexts to provide the students' perspective. To Almedalen we also had with us Linn Svärd, outgoing SFS chair, Linnéa Carlsson, chair of the doctoral committee and political secretaries Amanda Beckman and Mathilda Fredriksson from the office.
Meet others in the sector and industry
A fitting aspect of Almedalen is that many from our sector and industry are present. This means that we can meet for short meetings because we are all in the same place and can more easily have short meetings, which is not usually the case. We met, among others, representatives from the Swedish Student Unions, which represent student unions at upper secondary schools, to talk about student influence. Our sectors have started to meet more and more during the spring due to the ongoing debate about insufficient prerequisites and admission to higher education.
We also met with Saco Student Council, which is a student union organization. SFS and Saco Student Council have collaborated on several issues over the years. Last year we wrote a debate article about the financial situation of students with children.
We also participated as panelists in several seminars. Among other things, on the role of universities in total defense, where Jacob opened by saying that appointing security commissioners to the boards of universities is not the answer to the question of what universities should do to contribute to total defense. Klara participated in the Swedish University Teachers and Researchers (SULF) seminar on academic freedom in the constitution. Having academic freedom protected by the constitution is a joint approach as SFS, SULF and the Swedish Association of Universities and Colleges (SUHF) has been behind it since 2022. Jacob participated in Uppsala University's seminar "How little can a university education cost?" and strongly pressed SFS's appeal that politics must reform the resource allocation system in higher education. Klara also participated in a panel at Uppsala University on skills provision and addressed what we at SFS think is important for learning. Klara also participated in several panel discussions about student housing. In SUHF's seminar on autonomy, SFS was represented by Jacob, who addressed the issue of political governance through new degree goals in the Higher Education Ordinance and how it affects students. On Thursday morning, SFS also had our traditional seminar together with SUHF, which dealt with compensation amounts in higher education, where Klara stressed the importance of the compensation amounts matching the actual costs of teaching.
SFS seminar series
This year SFS arranged its own seminar series consisting of four seminars and a subsequent mingle. We held it in the fantastic environment of the King's Ruin and during the seminars we launched either a report, memorandum or a small pamphlet.
The first seminar was Higher education pedagogy – What has happened in 10 years? SFS has recently launched a follow-up report From words to action – A follow-up of the development of higher education pedagogy during 2013-2023 which follows up on the demands and calls that SFS made on the government and the universities in the report Student learning at the center – Swedish National Union of Students on pedagogy in higher education ten years ago. During seminars, a panel consisting of Klara, Hannes Snabb, chairman of the Liberal Students' Union, Anders Fällström, rector of Mid Sweden University and member of the expert group for higher education pedagogy at the Swedish University and College Association, and Karin Röding, former rector and director general, reacted to the report. There were exciting conversations about the lack of initiative from the government but also a number of difficult questions such as pedagogical skills in recruiting teaching staff. The issue of higher education pedagogy is part of SFS's political focus issue and is something that we will continue to highlight during the autumn and spring.
The seminar that followed, Stop the construction of student housing – What do we do now? launched the report For more student housing which SFS has developed together with the Student Housing Companies. The difficult housing situation of students is very tangible and therefore we have tried to present proposals for how politics can enable us to build more student housing with reasonable rents. The report was presented by the author Caroline Szyber followed by a panel discussion with perspectives from both politics, the sector and students. Leif Nysmed, Member of Parliament (S), pointed out that the current student housing situation makes higher education a class issue. Med Jakob Olofsgård, Member of Parliament (L), emphasized that we need to respect the current economic situation and not fuel inflation and that there are other solutions to get more student housing. Johan Knaust, CEO of K2A, which provides student housing in several locations, responded by saying that the financing issue is what determines when they decide whether to build or not. SFS Chairman Linn Svärd highlighted that this issue is crucial for Sweden as a knowledge nation.
The third seminar, How can a new system for resource allocation to higher education be designed?, based on SFS memorandum with five proposals for starting points in an investigation of the resource allocation system. Resource allocation was widely discussed during Almedalen Week, but during this seminar the discussion had to be based on SFS's concrete proposals. Coco Norén, Vice-Chancellor of Uppsala University, and Klara gave several good inputs and reactions to our proposals. But a panel of Riksdag politicians consisting of Mats Viking (S) and Cecilia Rönn (L) could not promise any changes to the current system for financing higher education.
Finally, we rounded off the day with the last seminar, Sustainable research and education – the research bill from a student perspective, where we presented four important points that we believe need to be taken into account in the upcoming research bill. It is in that bill that the government describes its efforts in more detail. The SFS doctoral committee has been working on the issue during the spring and therefore the committee's chair, Linnéa Carlsson, presented the proposals, which included issues such as financing, internationalization, research-related education and higher education pedagogy research. The panel discussion was very much appreciated because we had perspectives from the entire sector. Representatives from students, trade unions, various universities, research funders and politics were able to discuss the proposals and how they viewed the issues from their perspectives. A highlight was that all panelists raised their hands when we asked if they wanted to see a change in the Aliens Act that would allow doctoral students and researchers to stay in Sweden. Now we hope for change and that the government does what has been promised!
Finally, we also met with the Minister of Education, Mats Persson. We talked about the students' priority issues, but also teacher education and we asked about Mats' reflections from Sweden's presidency of the EU which ended on Friday, just like SFS's operating year. We also handed over all the reports that we launched in connection with our seminar series.
Concluding observations from the week
Something we have reflected on was that there was a broad spectrum of topics in the higher education sector that were discussed. Last year, I thought there was a big focus on the 2022 election, but for our sector it was also dominated by the transition study support. This year we experienced that several issues came to the fore, such as financing of higher education, skills supply, the role of higher education institutions in total defense, ethical review, research funding, but above all academic freedom and autonomy, which became very tangible at several seminars. During the ongoing Almedalen, we were also reached by the news that the government had decided to withdraw the Swedish Research Council's entire funding of development research, and this after several researchers had already submitted their applications. Academic freedom has been discussed a lot lately and we wonder how the discussion will develop in the future.
In conclusion, we from SFS are pleased to announce presidium We are happy with SFS's stay in Almedalen and with that we would like to wish everyone a happy summer!