NorwegianNORDTEK - Notater fra Studentmøtet
These are notes taken at
the NORDTEK Svalbard summit in 2008. The notes probably don't cover
all that was taken up, but most parts. I wasn't able to find all the
best translations for terms, hope you'll understand anyway =)
Organisation
Foundations
There are discussions in Finland
about making universities into foundations. Chalmers and Jönköping
in Sweden are already in an foundation form. The reason why they were
made a foundation was that they hoped that they would become more
competitive. The charter (sv. stadgar) for Chalmers copied big parts
of the Swedish educational laws, for example that each body should
have student representation.
One big difference was the
opportunity of increased fund raising. They have the opportunity to
create different company forms. There is also a juridical problems
for Swedish state universities since they are a part of the
government.
The unions in Finland are a part of
the university but still juridically a different organisation.
Pros:
Raising funds from
the industry
Being own legal
entity means opportunity to write legal agreements with anyone we
want
Owning our own
campus
Manage own capital
Quick decisions
Quick employment
Cons?
Rights of the
individual student
Influence on the
university.
In all countries (Sweden, Norway,
Finland) there are laws governing student representation in all
university bodies.
There are different methods of
picking which students who are representating the students. Trondheim
for instance has elections on a personal level at the same time as
the unions.
Sweden and Finland has mandatory
membership in student unions, however under discussions at the
moment.
Union organisation
All the unions seem to have guilds
often covering one specific programme. They are then members of a
bigger organisation in different forms.
International
topics
Exchange between us
Nordic technology universities
We believe that people don't want to
go to other northern countries for the culture but could be willing
if they were searching for specific educations and great research.
One problem is that it is difficult to appreciate which university
that's best at a topic. It would maybe help if the universities were
more specialised. Would probably promote the research as well. A big
problem is all the paperwork and administration to go away even for a
shorter period. It should be easier to study abroad.
It is difficult to find courses
containing the same material in other countries. Often small
differences make courses non-compatible.
Decrease of interest
for Erasmus programme
One problem with ERASMUS is that it's
only for Europe. People often want to go farther away. The paperwork
and the extensive time frame to prepare is also a big problem.
Better feedback from people who have
went abroad would help when choosing university.
Integration of
international students
They don't have the same needs as
local students. They know how to study at a university but have less
information on culture, language and so on. Lund has a reception with
older exchange students taking care of the new ones. This is
organised by the international office.
There are two major groups of
exchange students. Those who come for one year (or less) are often
here to party while the students staying longer tend to focus more on
the studying.
There's a natural segregation due to
the language.
There are big differences between the
institutions on the amount of exchange students.
There are big problems in getting the
exchange students to be a part of education politics and feedback for
the stay which in the end makes the programmes less attractive.
Educational
topics
Student recruitment
A big problem is the decreasing
interest for technology and technological education. This might be
due to the far distance from classrooms to the applying of science.
Especially mathematics is too bad applied. The important thing should
be of thinking mathematically, not being able to do calculations.
The interest for technology must be
aroused at an early age and keep up all the way through the education
system.
Postgraduate
opportunities
People who study technology begins
working in the industry while the science students continue at the
university.
There are big differences between
student groups concerning what type of company and size of company
they will work at.
Most of us seem to have big problems
in the alumni activities and keeping contact with alumni. They are a
great way of raising technology interest.
Influence from companies over
education is good but may shift to much if a specific company has to
much say in an issue.
Student fees
Sweden are implementing student fees
for non-European students and Denmark already has. Finland is
discussing the issue while Norway doesn't. Most unions are against it
because it might in the end lead to fees for all students.
Feeds needs increased marketing to
get students.
One problem might be that students
who have paid for their education might be considered of higher value
than those who got it for free.
Bologna
There doesn't seem to have been any
real changes, just applying the model on the already existing
programmes. This might mean that some of the original thoughts have
not been implemented for real.
Students who study the old programme
might now want to take a year off and for example work at the union.
They would then come to the new programme and might have to take
courses all over again due to changes. This is also a problem for
people who have missed courses.
Common student issue
to the conference:
We want out universities to
specialise and at the same time increase movement amongst us. The
reason for specialisation would create diversity amongst the
universities.
We have to create interest for
engineering science in the early ages.
There is too little focus on
education, too much on research.
Changes for next year
It would have been good to have some
pre-defined themes so that you could prepare yourself. One good thing
about this was however that you could choose areas out of interest.
The responsible university's union should be in charge of preparing
the student session
Old notes and “this has happened
since last time” would be good to get some background.
This conference should be on a very
strategic level, discussing big overlapping issues.
It's very sad that not all countries
could participate.
