Startpage for Swedish National Agency for Higher Education

 
 
Please note! The Swedish National Agency for Higher Education was closed down on 31 December 2012. Instead two new agencies have been established: the Swedish Council for Higher Education and the Swedish Higher Education Authority. This website will continue to operate as the new agencies will have links to information it contains.  

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A Mirror for Postgraduate Students 2003 - Summary in English

The report (85 kb)
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The circumstances in which postgraduate programmes are offered and the way in which they are organised have a major impact on their quality. Gathering information from those directly concerned is one way of casting light on this quality. For that reason, it is important to study the experiences of postgraduate students themselves, not least in view of the improvements that the new regulations introduced in 1998 were intended to achieve. A great deal of the research that takes place in Sweden is the work of postgraduate students. However, the underlying premise of A Mirror for Postgraduate Students (Doktorandspegeln) is that the primary purpose of postgraduate programmes is educational.

A Mirror for Postgraduate Students is the largest and most comprehensive study made up to now of postgraduate programmes from the perspective of the students. It forms part of the range of measures adopted by the National Agency specifically to shed light on various aspects of postgraduate education, one of the three thematic areas on which the Agency is currently focusing.

A Mirror for Postgraduate Students can also be seen as a supplement to the evaluations of all subjects and programmes to be undertaken by the National Agency during a six-year period at the behest of the Government and the Riksdag. In its adoption of a student perspective and its specific focus, A Mirror for Postgraduate Students broadens the scrutiny of higher education.
The National Agency for Higher Education hopes that A Mirror for Postgraduate Students will stimulate discussion and debate of both what postgraduate education is and of what it could and should be.

Those responsible for programmes - teachers, supervisors, postgraduate students and other stakeholders - have now been provided with material on which they can base their discussions and reflections about ways in which postgraduate programmes can be amended and improved.

It should also be pointed out that it is intended to conduct a similar study of undergraduate and postgraduate programmes (after 2-3 years) to monitor changes over time in the various disciplines and at the different higher education institutions.