2006:22 R

The trial with college year programmes 2002-2004

In terms of student populations, college year programmes are a minor element in higher education in Sweden. With about 600 students, they enrol less than one per cent of those admitted to higher education for the first time and an even smaller proportion of those taking adult education courses.

Recruitment has been successful when it comes to reaching the correct target groups for these programmes even though the course providers have experienced difficulties in recruiting students. Three of the nineteeen programmes considered that it was easy to fill the places offered. The higher education institutions and the adult education organisations have cooperated on recruitment.

Many college year students do not complete an entire programme but move on directly to some other programme in higher education when they have completed the adult education courses and become eligible for enrolment. Most of the higher education institutions have offered their college year students some form of guarantee of places in the programmes or courses they arrange on completion of the programmes.

About half of the college year programmes have also contained a higher education component, mainly with general contents to prepare students for continued study. The remainder has focused on a specific subject area. It has turned out that distance teaching is not suitable for the specific target group at which the college year programmes are aimed. This group is considered to need on-campus teaching with many contact hours.

In terms of student throughput in higher education fewer than half of the college year students completed the programmes they had started on. A somewhat larger proportion, half of the college year students, were registered in some programme in higher education in which they had also earned credits during the semester after their programmes. Five semesters after their college year programmes, 60 per cent of the students had been registered on a degree programme and earned credits.

In view of the extent of college year programmes and the rate of transfer to higher education, there is reason to question the value of continuing to offer these programmes in their current form. Drop-out from the higher education components has meant that the higher education institutions have failed to receive funding based on annual performance equivalents while at the same time incurring extra costs because of the individual support required by the methodological approach adopted. College year programmes have also in some respects required adaptation to the regulations for student funding and enrolment to higher education.

One conceivable change of the college year programme is to allow the extent of the higher education components to vary by introducing move freedom of choice for the students. The close cooperation with higher education is what distinguishes college year programmes from the courses normally offered in adult education. If the separate higher education component were to be reduced, preparatory courses for higher education could be integrated to a greater extent with adult education courses by introducing study methods similar to those used in higher education in some courses, together with guest lectures and information from different departments in the higher education institutions. A model of this type has been developed at Umeå University and is offered by Umeå Folkuniversitet.

• Collegeutbildningens första år (The first year of college year programmes). Högskoleverkets reg. nr 61-2400-03.
• Collegeutbildningen - en delrapportering våren 2005 (College year programmes - preliminary report, spring 2005). Högskoleverkets rapportserie 2005:23 R.