I read today that Sweden has decided to change their University system. The report reads that Sweden’s new university admissions system discriminates against foreign students and breaks EU law, according to the country’s university regulator.
The system, introduced this year, obliges universities to prioritize students who have studied extra high school courses in certain subjects such as maths and languages – but only if they’ve studied in the Swedish system. People who have been schooled outside of Sweden are relegated to a different quota group. But my main question is does that apply for EU citizens/residents as well?
The complicated new system may actually stop some people out of courses completely. The size of the quota group must reflect the percentage of foreign applicants. So for small courses with a small percentage of foreign students this could lead to them being frozen out.
This new system is already drawing in complaints from neighboring Scandinavian countries: Danish student Emma Vig was rejected for a course in Japanese at Lund University, despite having top marks in her Danish high school exams. This has drawn complaints from the Danish and Icelandic ministers have also indicated their displeasure, pointing out that Sweden has signed agreements with the other Nordic countries that bind Swedish universities to treat other Nordic students the same as domestic applicants.
There are those in the Swedish educational system that are already complaining that the system is unfair and needs to be changed. If you compare this to the UK system I would agree that this is an unfair system. The UK place a precedence on overseas students taking up college and university courses through either paid for, sponsored or free education.
Last years figures show that 15% of all students in the UK were non British. As someone moving to Sweden I may have a desire to further my knowledge possibly in Swedish history or Swedish politics but there needs to be more places made available to those educated outside of the Swedish educational system, especially when more Swedish people are seeking education overseas.
It’s a challenging system that is one I need to research more.
