Higher education in Sweden

The Swedish academic year is split into autumn and spring semesters. The majority of courses and study programmes start in the autumn. The autumn semester starts at the end of August and continues until mid-January of the following year. The spring semester usually starts in January and finishes at the end of June. Many HEIs also provide short summer sessions between the spring and autumn semesters.

Within the Swedish education system the student can either apply for self-contained courses or full study programmes. It is possible to be awarded a diploma or degree by studying self-contained courses as long as the student accumulates the appropriate number of credits in appropriate combinations. The full study programmes are a composition of courses, within which some courses are compulsory and some are optional. The study programmes often lead to professional or vocational qualifications, and vary in length from two to eleven semesters.

The credit system in Sweden is structured so that a normal workload is 30 HE credits per semester and 60 HE credits per academic year. One academic year is equivalent to 40 weeks of full-time study. Since the 1 July 2007 the Swedish credit system is compatible with the European Credit Transfer and Accumulation System (ECTS), the common system used in European countries to facilitate the recognition of higher education from other countries. This reform has been a part of Sweden’s implementation of the Bologna process, which is intended to coordinate higher education in Europe and enable student mobility between different countries.

In Sweden, the government has the overriding responsibility for higher education and research. The government enacts the legislation and establishes the targets, guidelines and funding for the sector. The supervising authority for higher education institutions in Sweden is the Swedish National Agency for Higher Education. It’s task is carried out through different activities, such as reviewing the quality of higher education, ensuring that education institutions comply with relevant legislation and regulations, monitoring trends and developments in higher education, providing information about higher education and recognizing qualifications from abroad. The Higher education institutions in Sweden are mainly governed by the Higher Education Act and the Higher Education Ordinance.  

  
DIPLOMA SYSTEM IN SWEDEN

All higher education courses and study programmes in Sweden are, according to the Bologna Process, structured into cycles; First cycle (undergraduate/Bachelor’s), second cycle (postgraduate/Master’s) and third cycle (postgraduate/doctoral). After successfully having completed three years of study at the first cycle, the student can apply for second cycle studies. Only after having received a second cycle degree is it possible to continue to third cycle studies. At the first level of study, there are two degree options; the “högskoleexamen”, achievable after two years of study (120 ECTS), and the “kandidatexamen”, or bachelor’s degree, achievable after three years (180 ECTS). At the second level of study there are also two degree options; Degree of Master (two years), called “masterexamen” (120 ECTS) and Degree of Master (one year), called “magisterexamen” (60 ECTS). At the third level, students are eligible for a Degree of Licentiate, “licentiateexamen”, after two years of research (120 ECTS) and a degree of Doctor (PhD, “doktorsexamen”, after fours years of research (240 ECTS).

The Swedish diploma system contains three different categories of qualifications; qualifications in the arts, social sciences or sciences, qualifications in artistic fields, or qualifications in vocational or professional qualifications.

The system of admission in Sweden is nationally regulated and stipulated in the provisions of the Higher Education Act, the Higher Education Ordinance, as well as in regulations issued by the Swedish National Agency for Higher Education.The selection criteria to all first cycle studies is mainly based on final school grades and the results of the Swedish Scholastic Aptitude Test for higher education. Second and third cycle courses and study programs are founded on the knowledge, skills and conceptual understanding acquired in the previous cycle programmes. The Higher Education Ordinance includes regulation about admission. It stipulates that applicants to higher education must meet the general entry requirements. 

INTERNATIONAL STUDENTS IN SWEDEN

The number of international students in Sweden is very high, and this number continues to increase. During the academic year 2006/7 there were 27 900 international students at Swedish higher education institutions (HEIs), of which 16 700 were free movers and 11 200 were exchange students. Two-thirds of the incoming students were from Europe and the Nordic countries and one fifth from Asian countries. Asian students are arriving in increasing numbers and the current figure is 5 900. The number of foreign students has tripled during the last decade, and in 2008/2009 the number amounted to 36 000 students.

The majority of the exchange students in Sweden are young, over 80 % are under 25. The proportion of women among exchange students is somewhat higher than the proportion of men, 51 and 49 %, a difference that is considerably smaller than for the Swedish student populations as a whole. Virtually all exchange students are taking shorter single-subject courses, mainly in law, social sciences, the humanities (languages) and theology. Two out of every three incoming student take courses in these subject areas.

Up until now, Sweden has been one of few countries not charging any types of fees. All students, irrespective of their nationality have thus been funded by Swedish taxpayers. The Swedish government has recently passed a law outlining tuition and application fees for non- EU/EEA students from the 2011/2012 academic year, to be supplemented by scholarship programs. The new tuition system will thus not apply to students from other EU or EEA countries, including Switzerland. Exchange students will also bee exempt from the new rules, as their studies are regulated by agreements, between Swedish and foreign universities. This reform is part of the governments policy to increase the standards of Swedish universities and enable them to compete on equal terms with universities in other countries. The scholarship programs will continue to give qualified foreign students who lack the appropriate funding, the continued opportunity to study in Sweden.