In the late 60s, a generation of young people in Sweden had grown up in a country of peace, growing prosperity, and loosening social constraints.
The world had come closer too – Vietnam, apartheid, and the American civil rights movement all played out on TV screens, making distant struggles feel immediate.
Universities, meanwhile, were expanding at breakneck speed. In just ten years, the number of students had more than tripled – from 37,000 to 120,000.
Funding wasn’t the issue – grants increased automatically with student numbers – but there weren’t enough classrooms or teachers. Meanwhile academic staff held near-absolute power, and students had almost no say in their own education.
And then came Ukas – a government plan to introduce formal and fixed study programmes, all aimed at streamlining higher education and aligning it with labour market demands.
For some students and academics, it was a step too far – an attempt to turn universities into factories, churning out workers rather than thinkers.
And so against a context of overcrowding and with revolution in the air, on May 24 1968, 1000 Swedish students took action. That night they occupied the SU building in central Stockholm, barricading themselves inside.
The atmosphere was electric – posters were hastily written, money was collected for food, and calls went out for government ministers to come in person.
That’s exactly the sort of scenario that can generate a “don’t negotiate with terrorists” line from plenty in power, but Education Minister Olof Palme has been a former President of SFS, Sweden’s NUS – so he rolled his sleeves up and made a visit.
Condemning those shouting him down, Palme said:
Democracy is an exacting system of government. It demands respect for others. One cannot force a system of government upon a nation from outside. The people must have the right to decide over their own destiny.
Some in Sweden still see what happened next as some kind of compromise with communism, but Palme’s response was about the sort of society he wanted to see. Students, he thought, had to be supported to practice democracy.
So in 1976 his Higher Education Act gave students the legal right to influence their education, mandated student representation on university boards and faculty committees, and institutionalised compulsory SU membership – positioning students as a democratic body capable of making collective decisions.
FREE education
It’s one of the stories we’ve been exchanging on day 1 of our Wonkhe SUs mini-study tour to Stockholm. Around 20 students’ union officers and staff from across the UK are in the Swedish capital on a dash around the city aimed at building links with and learning from others representing and serving students – and we’ve spent much of the day seeing Palme’s vision in action.
Some of the student communists from 1968 would be horrified that these days, the site of the old Kårhuset that had housed their occupation is now operated by the Stockholm School of Economics, one of the few private HEI’s in the country. But on our visit to see its students’ association’s Education Chair, you could feel Palme’s reforms in action.
As well as supporting programme-level representation and running a student teacher of the year award, Gustav Jäger and his committee’s Alumni Mentorship Program recruits exiting students to support Bachelor’s students to “learn from them, and possibly gain a friend for life” – cementing the idea of giving back throughout their career.
Tutor Center offers exam preparation sessions held by students who previously have taken a given module through group classes, often solving old exams or talking through how they approached assignments or group projects.
And once a year the school supports the committee to undertake an Educational Benchmarking Trip – visiting business schools around the world to look at innovation in pedagogy, curriculum content and how students are being supported to succeed.
It’s those trips and Jäger’s army of student participants that helped develop the school’s FREE model – Fact-based, Reflective, Empathetic, and Entrepreneurial. It integrates culture, empathy, and critical thinking into fact-driven learning, preparing leaders for an unpredictable world.
The school’s President Lars Strannegård has transformed SSE’s classrooms into artistic spaces and introduced reflective environments like a “lighthouse room”, reinforcing the idea that education should cultivate curiosity and truth-seeking.
Strannegård sees cultural literacy as a “vaccine” against disinformation and AI-driven challenges, equipping students with adaptability and “sound judgment”. And as well as study programmes, Strannegård is working with and funding the student association to prepare students for leadership in global institutions like the UN, EU, and NATO – such that out of the 1700 students in membership, about 700 hold some sort of position of responsibility.
Time won’t give me time
Two of the inevitable questions that come up from our end on these visits is why students take part in the volumes and intensity that they do, and how those student organisations attract and recruit students to take part.
Some of it is always inevitably about (national) culture – but if universities and students’ unions can’t change the world, then who can?
But meeting the Doctoral students chapter at the KTH Royal Institute of Technology also reminded us that it’s often just about time.
Unlike in the UK – where UKRI’s “new deal” for PhD students seems to be completely silent on student culture, extracurricular activities or student representation, those sorts of questions are specifically factored into the way the university manages budgets.
Like pretty much every country, funders including the government have been keen over time to speed up completion – but as those discussions have unfurled, specific discussions over time compensation have emerged to ensure that students undertaking roles that support others get extended time to complete as a result.
It means that hundreds of PhD students are engaged in ensuring the highest quality of doctoral studies at KTH, safeguarding the rights of doctoral candidates, providing leisure and networking activities to build belonging in the doctoral journey and offering opportunities for skills enhancement and career growth.
PhD students are salaried here – at a level some distance from the meagre minimum-wage linked “stipend” that some get in the UK – but that usually includes students undertaking teaching and Bachelors student support as part of the gig.
And careers is big for the chapter too – one of its key activities is a huge annual careers fair specifically for PhDs who may not be hoping for or considering a career in academia.
Who knew? Normalising participation and service – and then providing the actual resources to enable students to be “normal” seems to work here for PhD students just as much as it does for undergrads.
A new chapter
Elsewhere at KTH, if you’re a new student arriving in autumn, you will see groups on campus, dancing or chanting and wearing “weird” clothes. At KTH these groups are called “Chapters” and they are connected to different subject areas. Every student on every programme belongs to a specific chapter, which students recognise from their different coloured overalls.
Each chapter organises a scheme where a student will look after a group of new students and show them around the campus, the city and the diversity of the student body. They each have a welcome programme of informal activity that segues neatly with the main SU events.
Every chapter has their own chapter hall, where students study together, meet friends or heat up food during their lunch break. Each chapter hosts a weekly “pub” during the week where the emphasis is on social networking rather than getting off their face.
Some organise tournaments, or careers events. Some get involved in curriculum development projects and international exchange. Some go big on causing international students to integrate with home students. All of them organise the student representation in their academic area – flexing the structures and meetings and processes around the students they have and spotting when a rep position goes vacant.
Some go big on sustainability work – especially if it’s a big issue in that academic field. Most organise careers networking evenings. Most of the chapters put on student led study skills sessions for others. Some put on amazing weeks of subject based learning for other students – attracting incredible guest speakers who are more likely to come for free is it’s students asking.
Some run their own harassment initiatives, or take the lead on tackling problem conduct that has cropped up in their chapter. Many run their own campaigns – linking with other chapters on student hardship, hidden course costs or student safety.
Most command significant support from faculty, school or department based staff – many of whom have bits of budget to spare but crucially alumni keen to donate time, expertise and cash. All have high levels of student involvement in their democracy, pass on legends and history, and instil pride and interest in the subject area.
Konglig Datasektionen, the Computer Science Chapter at KTH, is particularly impressive. As well as cultural events like film and gaming nights, a Discord server for discussions and course assistance, the chapter also builds industry connections through events like its annual D-Dagen career fair, which features over 100 companies. It also produces a podcast titled “dtugget,” where members discuss various topics related to student life and technology, and engages in educational initiatives like utilising computer simulations to teach complex subjects like derivatives – enhancing learning experiences for students.
“School play syndrome” is strong here. You know the old theory – when the central SU organises something it’s like a broadway musical – everyone moans and most of them fail. But when students organise stuff for each other, it can be a bit ropey but it’s like a school play – everyone loves it because of the emotional ties.
Increasingly, we have a community and belonging problem in the UK. Proximity theory means that you’re more likely to find friends on your course than anywhere else – but if you don’t, that therefore hits harder – as we saw in the pandemic.
If we’re worried about belonging, no centrally run scheme will ever match support groups of enthusiastic student leaders – who might not want to stand in the celebrity sabbatical contest – to stage an amazing, inclusive welcome week for their faculty or department.
Belonging is about loneliness, having friends and “atmosphere”. But in a real community it’s about students getting involved and doing things for each other rather than doing things for students.
Back in the UK, we often meet PVCs and faculty deans who are crying out for student structures to talk to between raw rep and stressed sabb. We meet people committed to student voice crying out for capacity to engage with somewhere in the middle – who go around the SU and handpick if it’s not there.
And we often see students’ unions who are utterly dominated by one or two identity groups or one or two types of club or society. Assuming that the election of some faculty based sabbs will address that is like looking through the wrong end of the telescope.
The answer is surely building the community, reciprocity and social capital on the ground – who will then determine the right projects and structures all on their own.
More tomorrow, when we’ll be looking at Stockholm’s biggest student housing estate and taking a trip to historic Uppsala.
