2006:28 R

The labour market and higher education programmes in 2006

The National Agency starts by presenting its view of the terms that apply in planning the volume of programmes in higher education. For instance, it points to the importance of a system of distributing resources that will enable the preferable priorities to be allocated.
The National Agency advocates intensified cooperation between the higher education institutions on the one hand and various representatives of the commercial and public sectors on the other. Deeper awareness of higher education programmes is needed in the labour market, as is greater insight in higher education into developments in the labour market.

The higher education institutions should devote more attention to monitoring their alumni. Improvement is needed of the information provided to students and potential students about labour market prospects.

In this report the National Agency deals with 20 programmes or programme areas. In each case basic information is provided about the programme, labour market statistics and forecasts for development up until 2020. Some of this material has also been published by the National Agency in its report Högskoleutbildningarnas dimensionering (Volumes in higher education) (Högskoleverkets report 2006:6 R). Finally an account is given of the Agency´s own analysis of developments in each of the programme areas.

The National Agency is able to determine that shortages of qualified personnel exist in a number of areas and that these shortages will persist during the foreseeable future. This applies mainly to doctors, dentists, pre-school teachers, after-school recreation centre staff and vocational teachers. A shortage of graduates from bachelor´s and diploma programmes in engineering can also soon be expected.

In other areas there is a surplus of qualified applicants. This applies primarily to journalists and others with media qualifications, graduates in the fine arts - particularly those coming from newly established programmes - and in economics and business administration.

Teachers qualified for the higher grades in the primary school system and upper-secondary school teachers also belong to groups where there are major surpluses of qualified applicants, and moreover this situation is expected to persist and become worse during the period up until 2020. These qualifications are awarded by the same degree programmes as for the areas in which the shortages referred to above exist: pre-school teachers, after-school recreation centre staff and vocational teachers. For this reason, the new teacher-training programmes offer special - and complicated - conditions for decisions about volumes.