Startpage for Swedish National Agency for Higher Education

 
 

2004:34 R

Is the ultimate aim of a higher education a professorship or is it to be regarded as just a milestone in one?s life? Or neither?

Achieving a higher education is one way to “avoid fragmentation and excessive specialisation” and is therefore of optimum topicality today. Although it is not something that is meritorious for teaching or research, it affects not only the students but to an even greater extent the teachers. What then is a teacher expected to do when faced with diverse demands and expectations that leaves little or no room for a higher education?

During 2003 and 2004, the Swedish National Agency for Higher Education worked with a reference group that had a higher education as its remit theme. A continuously recurring subject in the group’s discussions was how it could be integrated with the curriculum. The group was unanimously of the view that it was necessary to try to exert influence on the teachers and not just the students.

The reference group for higher education included Annica Carlsson, student at Växjö University, Birgitta Arneklo-Nobin, senior lecturer in surgery and senior physician, Maria Schottenius, at the time cultural consultant in London, Michael Tengberg, student at the Göteborg University, Sven-Eric Liedman, professor of the history of ideas and sciences, Carl-Henrik Svenstedt, professor em. Author Birgitta Arneklo-Nobin, who is responsible for the text in this report; she is a senior lecturer in surgery and senior physician at the University Hospital in Malmö. She was awarded the Lund branch of the National Swedish Union of Students’ major prise in pedagogics and was actively engaged in an art- and medicine educational project at the Lund University.

This report is addressed to lecturers in universities and university colleges and contains rather more personal reflections on the role of higher education and has something to say to those who are interested in such education and to those have not yet done it. The Swedish National Agency for Higher Education hopes that this report will induce more to think about higher education.

The agency’s educational project will arouse debate on educational matters and attempt to reach lecturers, students and other groups within universities and university colleges.

Swedish National Agency for Higher Education  Visting address: Luntmakargatan 13  Box 7851, 103 99 Stockholm
Phone: 08-563 085 00  Fax: 08-563 085 50  Email: hsv@hsv.se