I was reminded of that quote earlier this week when Mats Persson, Swedish Minister of Education, burst out with an idea of funding an investment in the so-called STEM programmes (science, technology, engineering and mathematics) by reducing funding for what he referred to as freestanding courses for hobby-learning, "hobby courses".
Dieter Müller, Deputy Vice-Chancellor.
Photo: Mattias Pettersson
The minister's diagnosis of the state of the Swedish engineering programmes isn't the issue. The undermining of the government funding for education has led to a reduction in teacher-led instruction for students in all fields – something that all university lecturers are painfully aware of. Combined with a low demand for the engineering programmes and worsened prior knowledge of the natural sciences, this creates a toxic combination resulting in low throughput in the already dwindling student groups. This has become a problem for universities and for businesses requesting the labour. But above all, it's a failure towards students who aren't given a sufficiently honest chance of completing their studies with the desired results. Something needs to be done, and knowing that the Minister shares this view is gratifying.
The Minister's plans to fund an investment in engineering programmes by cutting back on independent "hobby courses" have, however, not been received well in academia. Instead, the suggestion has been the subject of severe criticism, and I'm prone to agree. The criticism relates partly to the Minister's lack of grounding his judgement on facts and his way of comparing one educational area with another. In addition, he's accused of interfering and infringing on universities' autonomy. I can recommend you all to read the many well-advised articles from, for instance, Stockholm University's deans (DN, 15 April 2024), KTH Royal Institute of Technology's Ritzen and Wormbs (DN, 16 April 2024), the Swedish National Union of Students (SvD, 10 April 2024), Akademikerförbundet SSR (SvD, 13 April 2024), Umeå University's Joachim Sundqvist (SvD, 16 April 2024) and Uppsala University's Vice-Chancellor, Anders Hagfeldt (DN, 17 April 2024). Even the editorial in Dagens Industri (17 April 2024) criticised the lack of nuance in the Minister's initiative.
The Minister's impression of poor throughput in one domain (engineering programmes) as a problem needing to be resolved and the poor throughput in other domains (humanities and social sciences) as a reason to discontinue courses, clearly shows that his motif doesn't involve throughput at all. Instead, the Minister finds certain industries more important than others, not least for the Swedish economy and welfare. The Minister has clearly missed how ABBA – currently jubilee-celebrating and forever popular – has managed to build a billion-dollar industry from something that started off as a hobby. He has also overlooked that his colleague Parisa Liljestrand, Swedish Minister of Culture, has announced that cultural and creative industries are a staple industry due to their financial success (GP, 9 April 2024). The Minister also seems to have neglected to see the importance of tourism, which, beside its direct contribution to State finances, has been an incredibly important first step into the labour market for international workers as well as for the image of Sweden abroad. He has also failed to notice the finance market, many business services and trade, that all contribute to the growth of this country. His impression that innovation only takes place in traditional industry hence belongs in history of finance, not in contemporary society. It's when engineering expertise and creative interests meet that exciting innovations take shape, which can be exemplified by the Swedish gaming industry or Spotify, for instance.
The new industrialisation of northern Sweden clearly shows that potential transformations of society don't only require technical know-how. For transformation of society, knowledge in many areas is needed since qualified labour doesn't move to factories, but to societies that need to be attractive for the worker and their families to thrive, and this may even involve the need for one or two "hobby courses".
Moreover, the Minister is hugely overestimating the savings potential that can be had from the accused courses. Also, there aren't really that many such courses, and the ones that exist are found in domains that already receive very low levels of funding, so this means that students dropping out doesn't make a huge impact on the funding system. This is something the Minister should have had prior knowledge of before making sweeping statements. (Also, basic knowledge about what a freestanding course is could be considered suitable for a minister responsible for education.)
Beyond the collective criticism expressed so far, there is yet another social aspect that hasn't been mentioned. Present Swedish demographics with a declining birth rate and an ageing population will likely result in a constant lack of labour in most domains. Already now, there's a need for more engineers, more police officers, more social workers, more nurses, more bus drivers, more chefs, more teachers and more in-home carers, to just name a few professions for which labour shortage has been expressed in recent years. Considering the record-low birth rate, this situation will also regretfully worsen. More engineers and nurses, like the Minister requests, will also result in fewer teachers and social workers (and the other way around). That's the real challenge. And it can't be solved by cancelling some "hobby courses". We need originality in debate, research initiatives and, most likely, creative education initiatives to approach this challenge.
Ultimately, one can agree with the Minister that not everyone needs to be a university graduate, but that doesn't mean academic knowledge is useless for those who don't take a degree programme. From a liberal perspective, academic courses grant individuals the opportunity to educate themselves and gain knowledge valuable for professional or private doings, which is also what may lead to the next major industrial breakthrough.