This is a debate article. The opinions expressed are the writer’s own.
DEBATE. 12,000 engineers a year want to return to the university to develop skills, according to a new survey. A new public student grant will facilitate studies for professionals. But for the engineers, the skills reform will be a blow in the air if it is not urgently invested in a matching range of courses, writes Sveriges Ingenjörer.
Earlier this year, the Ministers for Education and the Labor Market presented the new adjustment study support and spoke in terms of the largest freedom and security reform in the Swedish labor market in modern times. The new adjustment agreement, which contains a new public student grant, will make it possible for professionals to study with a remuneration corresponding to up to 80 percent of the salary.
With the shifts that are taking place in the industry, with climate change, digitalisation and electrification, engineers’ need to supplement their knowledge increases in step with the latest developments. The problem is only that the demand for skills development courses will increase to an extent that the universities are not ready to meet.
A new report from Sveriges Ingenjörer shows that as many as 18 percent of engineers are interested in returning to the university within three years to study a course. This corresponds to 12,000 engineers per year and where half of them plan to study a technical course. A comparison with the number of engineers who return to the university annually today for a technical course shows that the number can be expected to increase four times.
The new adjustment agreement, together with the new public student support, provides excellent opportunities to free up time and finance studies for those who want to change tracks in working life. Good so.
The problem that we describe in the report Thousands of engineers knock on university door – Without resources, the skills investment becomes a chimerais that our universities cannot in the long run offer courses during this or next year that correspond to the interests of the engineers.
Interviews with five technical colleges show that most have no or only a new course to offer professionals in autumn 2022 / spring 2023. Only KTH has the ambition to offer at least 100 new adapted courses for professionals. Without additional resources, KTH will not be able to provide these in the future.
The government has previously clarified the universities’ assignments for lifelong learning and allocated special resources for the period 2021–2023. The work of developing, adapting and offering short courses for professionals has begun but is said to be at a loss and can not be continued without additional funding. Nevertheless, nothing has been said about how the financing will take place in the future.
The higher education institutions need a fourth task. Competence development, together with the higher education institutions ‘three main tasks of education, research and collaboration, must be part of the higher education institutions’ activities. This requires special funding.
What, then, is required of our public actors in order for the “greatest freedom and security reform” not to go to waste?
We believe that Swedish universities and colleges must urgently:
• Design more courses available for professionals. This means that the courses cannot be too extensive to be read in parallel with work, that they can to some extent be followed digitally and that they can be read on several occasions during the year.
• Adapt existing courses so that they can be offered as independent courses, preferably in modules so that each individual can read exactly what he or she needs.
We also believe that the government must urgently:
• Provide information on increased total funding to the universities, which reflects that lifelong learning becomes a significant part of their mission. One-off efforts corresponding to the allocation for the period 2021–23 are not enough. Compensation for competence development should be given in the form of earmarked funds specifically for lifelong learning.
In the longer term, a review of the resource allocation system as a whole is needed.
The entire reform risks becoming a blow in the air without changes in the way universities work and not least long-term funding. Now it is up to the government to give the investment the right conditions. Only then can lifelong learning become the universities’ fourth task, and only then can the skills reform of the century come to fruition.
Ulrika LindstrandChairman of Sweden’s Engineers
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