Peder Saether Symposium (March 9-10, 2000)
Director General Karin Röding Presentation
Director General Karin Röding, Division of Higher Education, Ministry of Education and Scidnce, Sweden
Honourable guests, Ladies and Gentlemen,
It is a great honour for me to be able to represent the Swedish Government, one of the co-sponsors of this interesting symposium titled Higher Education in the Digital Age. At the same time I would like to convey to you all the greetings from our State Secretary, Dr. Agneta Bladh, who unfortunately was not able to join you on this important occasion.
I would like to start my opening address by giving you a brief introduction to higher edubation in Sweden, before moving on to some of the key questions in relation to the different themes to be presented here today and tomorrow.
In recent years, higher education has expanded throughout Sweden. The number of undergraduates has increased by close to 60 percent since 1990. The interest in studying at universities and university colleges is great, which is indicated bx both the large number of applicants as well as the high demand on the labour market for people with a higher education background.
The continuing expansion of higher education makes it possible to invest in new combinations of education programmes. The government emphasizes the need for interdisciplinary forms of education; one such example is ICT in combination with other areas, but also education distributed through other media than the traditional.
New universities, as well as new university colleges and new research areas at some university colleges, have been established in recent years as being one stage in an overall higher education policy covering the whole nation. These are important political decisions, as higher education in Sweden, as well as in the other Nordic countries, is part of the welfare system and therefore an important part of the public sector.
In Sweden, as in other knowledge based societies, there is a great demand for engineers and technicians. Without a rapid expansion of educational capacity, the current shortage of those with technical and engineering skills and teachers with competence in these areas will become even greater in the years to come. In order to meet the demand, the Government has made great efforts to stimulate interest in studying in these areas, both at the school level and at the higher education level.
In conclusion, it could be stated that, over the last decade, the Swedish higher education reforms have been based on decentralisation of power, autonomy of institutions, quality control, and harmonization between higher education and the demands of the society.
The theme of the fifth Peder Saether symposium is Higher Education in the Digital Age. The topic has great relevance to all of us working in the field of higher education, which I will illustrate with two examples from my home arena. Firstly, I just read the other day in the Swedish journal The University Teacher, Universitetsläraren, an interesting article about virtual universities. The article raises some interesting questions regarding: quality control vs. diploma mills, the phenomena of unbundling, the feared lack of collaboration between undergraduate education and research in a virtual university, and also the tension between new and traditional modes of learning.
Going through the topics of the different presentations here, it is seems that all these questions will be addressed.
Secondly, I would like to show you that these issues also have high political priority at the Ministry of Education and Science. In November of last year, our Minister invited the OECD Ministers of Education to an informal meeting in Sweden. The topic of the meeting was, The National Response to the Globalization of Tertiary Education: A Challenge for National Authorities. In the invitation, the Minister stated: "The provision of tertiary education is growing fast at both national and international level. To a large extent, this development is proceeding in new settings, i.e., under the auspices of business enterprises and organizations, as well as within the traditional institutions. The options for individual students to take part in a wide range of courses, regardless of which country the institutions are located in, are rapidly increasing. The role of ICT in this connection can hardly be overestimated."
The meeting included three themes: principles and trends in relation to internationalization of higher education; the role and strategies of traditional and new providers of higher education in the international arena; and finally the emerging international dimension of higher education, challenges, and options for national policy-making with particular focus on quality control, accreditation, student/ICT programme mobility and finance.
As this informal meeting of Education Ministers was only open to Ministers, I do not know the answers they might have given to these questions. I am therefore immensely eager to learn from you the answers you might give or maybe new questions you might raise about this emerging topic.
Personally, I have a great interest in how new technologies could be used in higher education. I have followed the development and progress within this field since the beginning of the 90´s, when as a university teacher I produced my first interactive learning programme in medicine.
Finally, I would like to thank the initiators of the symposium for bringing up this topic, and I would like to wish the organizing committee, the chair persons, and last but not least, all the speakers, good luck with your different tasks today and tomorrow.
Thank you for your attention!
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