Higher Education in Sweden: An Overview

Swedish higher education has been shaped by historical, social, economic and intellectual forces. Some of these are peculiar to Sweden, like a long tradition of neutrality and the pervasive influence of social democracy. Others apply more widely, like the shift from industrial and post-industrial society and the movement towards postmodernism. The last reform of higher education in Sweden took place at a time when neutrality was still unchallenged, social democracy seemed to represent the most advanced form of modern society, industrial growth appeared to be inexorable and faith in the scientific tradition was still unchallenged.

Today, with the end of the Cold War, the rapid movement towards Western European unity and diminishing Third World ideals, Sweden's traditional neutrality needs to be redefined. The rise of neo-conservatism has pushed social democracy on the defensive. The high-technology revolution, especially in telecommunications and intelligent systems, has disrupted old industrial patterns. And the sanctity of science is being challenged both by powerful "green" movements and also by the intellectual incoherence of postmodernism.

Swedish universities and colleges, therefore, have to operate in a less certain world. A redefined neutrality may make it easier to pursue closer academic collaboration in Europe. Higher education's egalitarian instincts may be modified if social democracy becomes a less dominant , or less confident, force. And post-industrialism and postmodernism point to a volatile and uncertain future. It is against this background that the detailed reform of the system must be considered.

Swedish higher education has been a unified system since 1977. Compared to most other European systems there is a strong sense of a united mission and shared purposes. But important expectations remain, most notably health colleges which have been left outside this unified system and music, drama and other art colleges, which have remained semi-detached.

A more important exception, however, is the division of the system into reSearch (in Swedish) and teaching institutions, the universities, and colleges which only provide undergraduate education. The former have better qualified teachers and more of them. As a result they can offer a richer and more varied undergraduate experience. Also, because reSearch (in Swedish) budgets have increased faster than teaching budgets, universities are much better funded.

Another exception to the unity of Swedish higher education is that even within the universities important divisions remain between the traditional faculties and the newer professional schools incorporated after 1977. Here are signs that the equilibrium of the system is now being threatened by demands from colleges for fairer treatment or even full university status. Sweden may need to be faced with a difficult choice - either to create a fully integrated system or to make explicit its present stratification.

The relationship between reSearch (in Swedish) and teaching is crucial to undergraduate education for two reasons - first, there is a world wide trend to spend more on reSearch (in Swedish) and less on teaching, so there is a risk that undergraduate education will be starved of resources; and secondly, teaching needs to be informed and refreshed by reSearch (in Swedish).

In Sweden there is unusually strong bias to reSearch (in Swedish) and against teaching. Almost two-thirds of the system's budget is for reSearch (in Swedish), and universities during the 1980's became reSearch (in Swedish) institutions also engaged in undergraduate education rather than the other way round. Also reSearch (in Swedish) and teaching are more strictly segregated in Sweden than in many other countries, therefore making it more difficult for the former to inform the latter. Many students complain that their teachers are not sufficiently involved in reSearch (in Swedish) and that undergraduate education suffers.

There is a three-way split in the Swedish system. First, universities are pushed too far towards reSearch (in Swedish), and colleges have to concentrate too narrowly on teaching (although some have been successful in attracting external reSearch (in Swedish) grants). If the latter were funded to carry out reSearch (in Swedish), their budgets would more than double. Secondly, within universities there is a division between faculty boards, which manage reSearch (in Swedish), and study course committees, which handle the bulk of undergraduate education. The department gets squeezed in the middle.

Finally, the academic profession is split into professors and other reSearch (in Swedish)ers, and lecturers responsible for teaching. Although many professors do teach and most lecturers are involved in reSearch (in Swedish), the division impoverishes undergraduate education. Professors should be academic leaders, and lecturers need more time to engage in scholarship, if not front course reSearch (in Swedish).

Although most students are following study courses, there is a strong prejudice against them. Courses are seen as too narrow, too vocational and too inflexible. They are also accused of fostering passive learning and an anti-reSearch (in Swedish) culture. The solution, say the critics of courses, is to allow students to follow single courses, a return to the pre 1977 pattern.

Many of these criticisms are unfair. Firstly, many students still do follow single courses, especially in the traditional arts and sciences and in universities. Secondly, no one denies that professional education has to be organised in courses. Thirdly many courses, especially in universities and larger collages, give students a good choice of elective courses. Fourthly, many courses far from being anti-intellectual, coher far superiorly to that of single courses. The best approach is to reduce the sharp distinction between courses and single courses. The former should be more loosely constructed with more electives and better transfer arrangements; the latter should be organised as flexible units within a lager undergraduate programme, especially with the reintroduction of the BA degree.

The quality of undergraduate teaching is impossible to assess by truly objective measures. But personal observation and the widespread concern about undergraduate education suggest that standards are already high. There is consensus that active learning should be preferred to passive teaching; that students should be guided towards intellectual autonomy as well as becoming highly trained experts; and that critical skills should be encouraged. But there is less agreement about what needs to be done to achieve these objectives.

1. The suggestion that Swedish students are over-taught is, at best, half-true. A greater problem seems to be the comparative lack of seminars in which teachers and students interact. However, there are many interesting experiments in ways to encourage independent study, to use new technology in teaching, and to apply the lessons learnt in distance education to undergraduate education as a whole.
2. The total number of students has remained fairly stable in Sweden during the past decade. but the number of qualified school leavers has increased by almost 50 percent. This has led to growing selectivity. The demand from society and the economy for graduates is likely to exceed the supply capacity of the system, especially in the first decade of the next century. On both counts there is a strong case for increasing the number of student places. Recent changes in student admissions are likely to produce a better fit between applicant and places, because it may be easier to measure future potential rather than past performance; to encourage more school leavers to go straight into higher education; and to create a more clearly defined constituency of mature students. But the system still needs to become more open.
3. There are many complaints about the Swedish pattern of short consecutive courses followed by frequent examinations. It is said to encourage shallow learning and a content-dominated curriculum. Also, most examinations are graded pass/fail and may be too easy to pass. On the whole students support the present pattern while teachers have mixed views. However, there is a trend to longer courses and more complex examinations that test conceptual and summative skills. Many existing examinations are imaginatively designed. A wholesale move to end-of-session examinations graded into classes of pass is not practicable.
4. Evaluation is poorly developed in the Swedish system. Market signals are weak; state sponsored evaluation is limited; and professional evaluation, such as peer-review, regarded with suspicion. However, students are active in evaluating undergraduate education and there are interesting examples of experiments in which student feed-back has been formally incorporated into course structures. Employers are more concerned with quantity than quality, but they support greater internationalisation of undergraduate education and also more emphasis on problem-solving. The state sees its role as quality evaluation, leaving quality management to institutions, but the two are hard to separate and the state has few tools, apart from quantitative performance indicators which it distrusts, to evaluate quality. Finally, in institutions and among teachers there is suspicion of both performance indicators and peer review.
5. There is strong support, especially among students and in smaller colleges, to make teacher training compulsory for lecturers. This demand is difficult to reconcile with the parallel demand that they are more active in reSearch (in Swedish). Also, over-organised pedagogy may inhibit active learning by students. A better approach is a combination of introductory courses for new lectures, in-service training, and more emphasis on "teaching cultures".
6. The recent creation of a council for the renewal of undergraduate education is a significant initiative. Its work is likely to provide a focus for the scattered efforts in universities and collages to raise the status of teaching. The key to change, however, is to see undergraduate education as an intellectual responsibility, not just a pedagogical challenge.
7. Equal opportunities, surprisingly in view of Sweden's record on women's rights, are seen as a significant component in the debate about undergraduate education. Yet the rapid increase in female students is one of the most striking phenomena in all higher education systems. This has led to difficulties and tensions (most notably, by highlighting the under-representation of women among professors and lecturers). But it also opens up hopeful possibilities.
8. Many universities and colleges have established so-called "common core" courses. Some are aimed to introduce students to higher education by emphasising the break with secondary school; others have more ambitious objectives, to emphasise the wholeness of knowledge or to raise difficult philosophical and ethical questions. The latter may mark an important change in Swedish higher education; a turn-back to liberal learning that echoes the wider changes in Swedish and Western society.