The evaluation of the subject teacher educations is complete

In the autumn of 2018, an evaluation of the quality of subject teacher education, compulsory school years 7–9 and upper secondary school began. The evaluation includes art, dance, sports and health, mathematics, music, social studies and Swedish. Out of 103 educations, 59 receive high quality and 44 questionable quality. The results presented are not final, the universities have one year to rectify the shortcomings identified.

- Since it is a large evaluation where seven substances are evaluated, there are several different reasons for the shortcomings that have been identified. Something that is largely common is that the competence can be strengthened both in terms of educational science competence and didactic and subject didactic competence. Several higher education institutions that have succeeded well have made long-term strategic investments in the subject teacher education and invested in recruiting the necessary competence, says Anders Söderholm, Director General of UKÄ.

Mathematics and Swedish have the biggest challenges

Among the subjects that have been evaluated, there are several educations that show shortcomings in mathematics and Swedish. Few students in combination with a demanding subject content and requirements for research breadth in both mathematics and mathematics didactics make it difficult to present good educational environments for subject teacher education in mathematics.

The subject teacher education in Swedish is available at 21 higher education institutions. The evaluation shows that there is a national need to strengthen competence in both language and literature didactics. This can be done by the higher education institutions further developing education and research.

For both Swedish and mathematics, the challenge is greatest for the educations with a focus on grades 7-9.

Social sciences and music have performed better in the evaluation. In most educations in Sweden, the subject of music is both well-established and stable. In the subject teacher education in social studies, the vast majority of higher education institutions have succeeded well in meeting the degree requirements and in preparing their students both subject-theoretically and didactically for a future working life.

Important to prepare for working life

The evaluation shows that several higher education institutions have difficulty in creating a cohesive education where the student deepens knowledge and skills during the course of the education. At the higher education institutions that show that they work systematically to ensure the students' scientific competence and professional competence, a large proportion of the educations have also been judged to be of high quality.

- Society is constantly changing, which places high demands on teachers to continuously develop their teaching. It thus becomes important that the education is designed and implemented in such a way that it is useful and develops the student's readiness to face changes in working life, says Emma Wimmerstedt, senior investigator at UKÄ.

The result in brief

• The evaluation includes 27 universities and colleges
• A total of 103 educations have been examined. Of these, 59 receive high quality and 44 questionable quality
• Picture: 8 educations get high quality and 2 questionable quality
• Dance: 1 education gets high quality and 2 questionable quality
• Sports and health: 6 educations get high quality and 4 questionable quality
• Mathematics: 9 educations get high quality and 13 questionable quality
• Music: 6 educations get high quality and 2 questionable quality
• Social studies: 16 educations get high quality and 6 questionable quality
• Swedish: 13 educations get high quality and 15 questionable quality

Read more

See the results in brief.

Take a look at all the results and the assessment group's opinions in Högskolekollen.

Note! The results will be published in Högskolekollen 19 February at 09.00. However, some delay may occur.

About the evaluation
The purpose of UKÄ's educational evaluations is both to control the results of the educations and to contribute to the higher education institutions' development of the quality of the evaluated educations.

The assessments have been carried out by several assessment groups, a total of 67 people. The assessment groups consist of subject matter experts, working life representatives and student representatives. The assessments are based on self-evaluations that the university sends in to UKÄ, the students' degree projects from the past year, interviews with the university and with students, and statistics on how many students drop out of the program.