To promote lifelong learning, the Swedish Riksdag decided to establish a new form of student financing for adults in the workforce looking to professionally reorient themselves and strengthen their position in the labour market. The decision came into force earlier this year, in October. So, what does this entail for us as an education provider? Can we really afford to settle for what we are doing today? Do we have what it takes to be at the forefront of this evolution? Do the courses and programmes we offer reach the right students?
The new career-oriented student financing offers those who apply for it and meet its criteria the opportunity to study for a full year while retaining their salary. A very attractive offer indeed – many have already jumped at the chance! According to CSN (the Swedish Board of Student Finance), the number of applicants (in Swedish) has exceeded all expectations. Even though the new type of support has only just become available, almost 20,000 people applied for it ahead of the 2023 spring semester. Many applications were rejected, though, because they did not meet the requirements. To our delight, however, the very first person who did get a positive response is hoping to study to become a police officer here in Umeå!
Heidi Hansson, Deputy Vice-Chancellor of education
Photo: Mattias Pettersson
It is important to keep in mind, however, that people's interest in higher education closely mirrors labour market trends. Here in northern Sweden, for example, workers are in high demand and unemployment is low. This makes it hard to say what effect the new student financing will have on these northernmost parts of the country. At the same time, we know many prospective students from across the country have their sights set on Umeå. The statistics on the number of people who applied for the new support ahead of next semester reveal that Umeå University is currently Sweden's third most popular education provider, just behind Stockholm University and the University of Gothenburg. In total, about 500 people applied to enrol at our university using the new student financing. About three quarters of them are women.
Lifelong learning has long since been part of our university's mandate. As a comprehensive university, our range of courses and programmes offers students both breadth and depth. For those who want to combine work and studies, we have educations at varying rates of study offered on or off campus, differently distributed throughout the week/year/month/semester. But we do need to explore whether and how we can make our courses and programmes even more accessible to working professionals. At the request of the Swedish Government, we have now gone through the lifelong-learning and reorientation opportunities we provide; together with our fellow higher education institutions, we presented a report to the Swedish Higher Education Authority (UKÄ) at the end of November.
We define "lifelong learning" as the freedom and responsbility each human being has to keep developing and learning new things throughout their life. Some may want to specialise to be able to handle the increasing complexity of their existing tasks. Others may opt for further education to be able to tackle new tasks. Still others may focus on training for the sake of personal development, or even decide on a 180-degrees change in careers.
The plan is for the new career-oriented financing to be fully up and running by 2026. Today, there are still quite some questions about the practical implementation of the initiative. One thing is certain: it will affect Swedish universities' mandate as higher education providers, with a clearer need to think outside the box and expand both the educations we offer and the ways in which we do so. All of this will require commitment and consultation, both internally here in Umeå and with other actors in the higher education sector. We look forward to new knowledge, new students and new partnerships!