Minister’s criticism of freestanding courses sparks row

Swedish Minister for Education Mats Persson has been accused of portraying a false picture of higher education after he criticised the number of ‘freestanding’ or independent courses, which he described as ‘hobby-like’ being offered by the country’s universities.

In an article in Svenska Dagbladet (SvD) on 9 April and in a followup interview in Dagens Eco, Persson promised to end the expansion of such courses, arguing that approximately half of those students starting freestanding courses never finish, according to Statistics Sweden (SCB).

He also claimed that the former social democratic government had expanded the availability of these courses in order to hide mass youth unemployment.

“This has led to a devastating strategy aiming at having more students registered at the universities instead of improving the quality”, he said. “That has led to students today being able to study beer making, wine knowledge or the behaviour of dogs at Swedish higher education institutions,” he said.

“People now are asking themselves if it is right that taxpayers’ money should be used for hobby-like courses when the health sector and the industry are crying out for more knowledge,” he stated.

He said the goverment’s budget will seek to reduce the growth of freestanding courses and courses offered as distance education and strengthen engineering and technological courses and other professional education where there is a more pressing societal need.

“Through this prioritisation we will give higher education institutions better conditions to achieve high quality both in education and research and thereby build a stronger Sweden,” Persson said.

Freestanding courses fall outside of a university’s programme structure. According to the website of the University of Gothenburg, which offers about 600 such courses, the extent of a course can vary from 7,5 ECTS to 30 ECTS and can run part of a semester or a full semester.

According to the university, a student can still obtain a degree without studying a programme by studying free standing courses but must still fulfil the requirements for obtaining a degree.

A ‘false picture’

Responding swiftly to Persson in SvD president of the National Union of Students (SFS) Jacob Färnert said: “The minister is giving a false picture of higher education. The number of students in freestanding courses has been reduced.”

He said the minister was attempting to manoeuver higher education supply in a direction that would advantage neither the jobs market nor students.

Questioning Persson’s claims, Färnert said between 2012 to 2013 and 2022 to 2023 the number of students increased by 6% from 300,584 full time equivalents to 319,294. During the same period the number of students on freestanding courses was reduced from 85,449 to 73,934. He said the reduction was significant both in absolute numbers and in percentage drop – from 28% to 23%.

Färnert said while there were strong reasons to strengthen the quality in higher education, not least because Swedish universities are anticipating a SEK1 billion (US$92.7 million) shortfall during 2024, leading to cuts to teaching staff, he said a reduction in freestanding courses was contrary to what the workforce and the students demanded.

Questions around university autonomy

“And we are very disappointed with the minister now wanting to sharpen political control over higher education which normally is regarded as the responsibility of the universities,” Färnert said.

Speaking to University World News, Jacob Färnert said: “We are surprised that the minister is presenting a policy that lacks support within the higher education sector, among students, universities, trade unions and employers’ organisations.

“Just days later, a public inquiry was also launched to review access to short and flexible courses, something that can only take place within independent courses.”

Färnert says the minister’s comments were in line with previous actions on the issue of ‘cancel culture’, where the minister portrayed universities as incapable of defending academic freedom.

“It can almost be interpreted as the minister trying to undermine their autonomy and legitimise increased political control of the universities,” he said.

In the weeks after Persson’s article was published, five op-ed articles attacking his views appeared in SvD. Persson’s views also elicited several responses from rectors through blog pages and in social media.

Several other newspapers followed up the story. Persson’s stand was criticised by several academics in the debate and culture pages of Dagens Nyheter, Dagens Industri and in Sydsvenskan, some of whom characterised him as populist. Some critics said more, not less, freestanding courses were needed.

Editors weigh in

An editorial in Dagens Nyheter on 17 April under the headline, “Universities do not need an influencer, Mats Persson, accused the minister of whipping up sentiment against the freestanding academy, and taking the focus away from more “serious questions”.

While focusing on the issue of university funding, the DN argued that the minister was missing an opportunity for serious discussions, particularly as he had said during a news programme on Dagens Eko that it was not his job to govern the university sector in detail.

“Then why is he trying to do just that?” asked DN. “And in particular if he is aiming at a serious discussion on universities and higher education in general?”

The editors argue that the minister’s actions do “not look like a coincidence”, concluding that: “The higher education minister of Sweden does not need either to be a populist or an influencer, but rather someone that manages to stand a serious discussion on academic freedom and conditions for these.”

The funding problem

In SvD the two rectors of Lund University and Uppsala University, Erik Renström and Anders Hagfeldt (respectively), argued that Persson had not understood the higher education system, taking cases out of context and making crude simplifications.

Their position is that the problems with Swedish higher education do not arise from freestanding courses but from the underfunding of universities: a decline in the allocation of funds per student since the mid-1900s and that has led to fewer teaching hours and fewer laboratory-based courses.

Lund president Renström headed his blog on the issue: “Freestanding courses are universities’ DNA” and went to great lengths to explain the advantage of freestanding courses both on campuses and through distance education – the latter being specifically criticised by Persson.

“By developing freestanding courses, the whole course selection is vitalised. In these times of faster changes in a world with new challenges, shorter courses need to be established compared to having to work out longer study programmes,” he said.

He also argued that freestanding courses through distance learning were helping more students get access to international milieus by participating in digital courses, for instance, through Collaborative Online International Learning or COIL, where students from universities in different countries participate in the same course, exchanging knowledge and ideas.

Against the tide

“The minister of education in Sweden hence seems to be going in the opposite direction of the rest of Europe when he is saying that fewer students shall study at freestanding courses also at distance,” Renström said.

Astrid Söderbergh Widding, president of Stockholm University, said she would belong to “the closest mourners” group if there was an attack on freestanding courses – not only as president of one of Sweden’s largest universities with the largest number of freestanding courses, but also because her own career had been built from freestanding courses taken at Stockholm and Uppsala universities, which had combined into a degree.

She said while it was easy for the minister to label some of the courses as ‘hobby’ courses, those only accounted for a small fraction of all the freestanding courses offered.

She also argued that the minister’s announcement had created a conflict between the intention to reduce the number of freestanding courses and the political goals of broadened recruitment to higher education and lifelong learning.

This conflict also existed in the form of current recommendations to universities concerning micro-credentials.

A March 2024 Guideline on micro-credentials produced by the Association of Swedish Higher Education Institutions (SUHF), states on its first page that freestanding courses in Swedish higher education are micro-credentials.

“Freestanding courses that grant higher education credits and are quality assured by Swedish higher education institutions meet all the EU standard elements and principles for micro-credentials,” the guideline notes.

“There is a significant added value for individuals who, in their lifelong learning, choose to acquire micro-credentials as are freestanding courses at Swedish higher education institutions.

“Sweden has an excellent, module-based and flexible basic structure for higher education – with more potential, which today is not fully utilised,” the guideline states.

In general, the document aims to make “recommendations to the member higher education institutions on considerations for the continued development of micro-credentials for lifelong learning of high international quality”.

A broad spectrum of interests

Professor Ole Petter Ottersen, former rector of the University of Oslo and the Karolinska Institute in Stockholm, Sweden, and now acting secretary-general of the Guild of European Research-Intensive Universities in Brussels, told University World News he supported the critical comments of his former rector colleagues in this matter.

“Open, freestanding courses are a central part of universities’ area of operations and responsibility. Universities have to be an arena for thematic pluralism and open for a broad spectrum of interests.

“To follow one’s interests is important for individual development – and knowledge that might not be seen as useful can suddenly become important. A classic example is that of Steve Jobs and Macintosh. His curiosity led him on to courses in calligraphy and the art of writing that he used successfully ten years later when developing the Macintosh PC.

“It is sad that a minister is choosing to ridicule his own sector by drawing on examples that belittle universities as serious actors. And that in a time of pressing societal and global challenges when the universities are more important than ever,” he said.

Mats Benner, professor in science policy studies at Lund University School of Economics and Management, and past member of the Swedish government’s Research Advisory Board (2009-10, 2015-16), told University World News the minister was “provoking the sector he has been appointed to govern”.

He explained: “There might be a plan behind all this fighting, but the mode of operation is clearly not very successful. Mr Persson is indeed right that there is a need for an overhaul of the funding and governance of higher education, with better planning of the supply and structure of education, and a funding model which is less rigidly performance-based.

“Such a reform will take cumbersome deliberations between all stakeholders, but the minister's trigger-happy approach does not really help at all and he has little to bring all parties to the table.

“Of course, politicians are masters and not servants, but they need to be in tune with their sectors if they want to make their mark. This is clearly not the case with Mr Persson, who has an uphill battle to regain the confidence of Swedish universities.”