2004:36 R
The labour market and higher education 2004
Information about priorities and cooperation plans from the universities and university colleges are essential to assessing inter-institutional profiling or possible concentration of courses to specific higher education institutions. The Swedish National Agency for Higher Education anticipates a likely return to these matters again in next year’s annual report. The agency’s forthcoming project is also linked to current investigative considerations regarding the resource allocation system. The main part of this report is narrowed down to in-depth analyses of a selection of vocational courses within these areas that are judged to be of particular interest. The quantitative analyses have been based on agency statistics concerning applicants, students and graduates. An outcome of the agency’s higher education quality assessment work is that its findings could be used for certain courses. A number of other investigations made or currently being processed by the agency has also provided a reference source. Reports and analyses made by the Prognosis Institute at the Central Bureau of Statistics have chiefly been used to throw light on the future supply and demand position with regard to the various future higher education categories. Also used as referral documentation are the assessments made by other authorities and organisations on the need for people with a higher education.
Development within the various professional groups
Engineers
M.Sc. in engineering graduates constitutes a relatively young professional group with not many retirement departures. At present they are in good supply but incipient shortage might be the case in a few years. A similar situation also applies to those engineers with a university diploma or a B.Sc. degree in engineering. They belong to the higher education group that will primarily replace technical college engineers soon to take retirement. In the present situation, however, no reasons exist for increasing the number of programme places. As far as university diplomas or B.Sc. degrees in engineering courses are concerned, there is, nevertheless, a need for profiling and cooperation. Reasons exist for concentrating university diploma or B.Sc. degree in engineering courses when bearing in mind the extent of the number of orientations at each institute of higher education; something that the Swedish National Agency for Higher Education confirms in its evaluation of these courses.
Information and communication technology
Currently there is a good supply of systems engineers and programmers, and the influx of fresh graduate systems engineers and programmers on the labour market should exceed the demand in the next few years to come. Applicant pressure is currently low for courses in computer and systems science. The earlier powerful expansion in this area has led to a shortfall in teacher and researcher competency. Computer and systems science/information processing evaluations by the Swedish National Agency for Higher Education have shown that there exists a need for concentration or some form of cooperation between the institutes of higher education. For the moment there is also a good supply of engineer graduates in computer science, but here too a shortage in the future is anticipated.
Health care
With regard to medical higher education, first and foremost the dimensioning requirements concerning physicians and dentists are judged to be too low when bearing in mind future needs. If Sweden is to have a self-sufficient supply of physicians, higher educational capacity here must be increased by thirty per cent, i.e. about 300 places for new entrants.
In the short term, the need to import fully qualified physicians will continue. The future need of dentists will depend to a very great extent on how dental work is allocated between dentists and dental hygienists. In the meantime a cautious expansion can be motivated while awaiting fully reliable assessments on future needs. Foreseen is a shortage of specialist-trained nurses. The competent tackling of health care needs in the various regions will be a matter of priorities. At the moment there is no reason to increase the number of study places for nursing higher education courses.
Anticipated is a certain shortage of graduate social workers due to substantial retirement departures combined with many prematurely quitting the profession. The amalgamation of the B.Sc. courses in social work and in social care proposed by the Swedish National Agency for Higher Education should provided a greater flexibility that will benefit both the students and the labour market. With regard to both physiotherapists and occupational therapists, the balance here between supply and demand is good, but eventually there should be a need in society for more of both these health care groups. Coming retirement departures will result in further shortage of pharmacy graduates.
Teachers
A general forecast here is the need for greater recruitment of teachers. An expansion in teacher-educational capacity is needed, but youths also need strong incentives to encourage them to opt for specially focussed aspects of the teacher training; for example, teacher courses specialising in technology and natural sciences, also in pre-schooling and pre-school classes. Required are particular efforts towards doing something productive contra the problem of unqualified teachers, e.g., by making SAL (Special Teacher Training) a pre-requisite condition for course admission. SAL can also be one way of bettering the need for vocational studies teachers.
Degree objectives
On the basis of its analyses, the Swedish National Agency for Higher Education directs that degree targets be set for supplementary courses. This chiefly applies to degree courses in economics and journalism, where a surplus in these two fields is anticipated.
The regional dimension
Higher education provision is evenly divided throughout Sweden. There is at least one institute of higher education in each county, added to which is a growing higher education availability vis-à-vis distance learning. There are, however, differences when it comes to specific study programmes. Traditionally found in many places are teacher courses and graduate engineer courses as well as courses in economics and courses in other social sciences. This also applied, for example, to courses in nursing. That these courses are well spread out across the country is of importance with regard to recruitment, especially of groups that come from environments with little or no study experience.
Essentially very much less spread out are several of the long courses that lead to vocational higher education qualifications which ought to be regarded as necessary for upholding quality. In some cases there is a risk of far too small, and thereby, vulnerable environments, something revealed by several of the evaluation surveys made by the Swedish National Agency for Higher Education.
Study places at universities and university colleges
The past ten years has seen significant expansion in the number of study places at universities and university colleges. To all intents and purposes it would seem that this period of expansion is now at an end. This means that to an even greater extent the new and altered need for higher education must be achieved through the establishment of new priorities. The view of the Swedish National Agency for Higher Education is that the steering system should be redesigned to encourage greater incentives.
Work continues
The work with the government commission will continue during the year 2005. This will involve the implementation of a number of projects by the Swedish National Agency for Higher Education, the aim of which will be to present in its 2005 annual report complete and in-depth analyses of all the courses with unambiguous vocational orientation.
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