We welcome the fact that universities have hired more administrators and administrative lawyers to handle the large number of cases in the disciplinary committee that the pandemic likely caused.
However, the time that students have to wait before their cases are processed by the disciplinary committee remains unacceptably long. It is also important to work preventively to ensure that the number of cases in the disciplinary committee decreases. We believe that the university should work more actively with information and preventive measures.
Those two paras are from a report from an SU student ombuds at a university in Sweden. On our study tours to Europe, we’ve found that different countries have different systems for handling individual student cases – some have institutional ombuds adjudicating issues, some have national figures, and here in Sweden each SU tends to have employed Ombuds that students can approach with individual issues.
That’s not hugely different to the system of student advice centres that we have back in the SU – but there are some crucial differences, in framing, in activity, and in underpinning context.
SUS’ Ombuds at Stockholm University, for example, provide support for students facing study-related issues – such as accusations of cheating, admission problems, syllabus concerns, or psychosocial study environment issues.
They offer (legal) advice, assist with university communication, support in disciplinary matters, and help draft appeals. Confidentiality is ensured, personal information is handled with care, and students can also access guides on their rights or report their issues via a form on the website for direct assistance.
That’s not to say that any of the above isn’t carried out in the UK – but the focus on academic rights in a wider context of student influence matters.
What the UK would call “representation” or “voice” is almost always framed as student influence here – emphasizing the power and purpose rather than the process, encompassing the idea that students should have an influence over their education both individually and collectively in a way that “representation” never can.
The ombuds framing is interesting – because there’s less sense that the role is to provide support or advice, but rather to enable students to stand up for themselves when the university they have signed up doesn’t play by the rules.
Rights are almost always central to the promotion and information provided – because rights matter, rights can be exchanged and understood by students, it’s rights that differentiate between a student that “has a case” and one that doesn’t, and because and it’s the promotion, defence and extension of rights that underpins the learning SUs can do from individual cases to wider change.
At Stockholm, we were familiar with the idea that students have the right to receive their grades results within 15 working days – shocked at the idea that teachers are required to respond to student emails within three days.
And that focus on change is what leads to reports like this one from Gothenburg, where recommendations (many of which have been taken up) include reducing the waiting time for cases handled by the disciplinary board and preventive measures like better education on academic integrity, academic writing expectations and anti-discrimination policies.
It’s the law
We met with Stockholm’s SU ombuds on day 2 of our Wonkhe SUs mini-study tour to Stockholm. Around 20 students’ union officers and staff from across the UK have been 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 been hearing a lot about how that student influence law we discussed on Monday plays out in practice.
Last October following a regular review of the policy, the President (VC) of Stockholm University adopted these regulations for student influence – and the covering blurb says quite a lot in and of itself:
Students have the right to exert influence over the courses and study programmes at Stockholm University, and the University shall encourage them to actively participate in the further development of their education. The efforts to achieve a high level of education quality constitute a common concern for staff and students at the University.
The Higher Education Act establishes the overarching legal foundation, a national ordinance builds upon the legal basis and then that’s all operationalised through institutional regulations and policies that tailor student influence to the university’s specific structure and governance.
So here the university runs comprehensive training for student reps and staff, maintains dedicated influence webpages, and provides a student representation checklist for staff. New students are briefed on their rights and involvement opportunities during orientation.
Reps on every committee get formal introductions to their roles, and every department must appoint a student influence contact – who reports to a central university contact overseeing an annual evaluation of the system with the SU.
One of the key differences between the UK and Sweden (and most of Europe) is also how many university-wide student reps there are, and what they do.
The bone-headed tradition in the UK is that a couple of sabbs appear to sit on pretty much every university committee – baking in their ineffectiveness, lack of passion and interest in some of the meetings, but very much ensuring that the university’s management can “get to know” who’s going to be popping up in all their meetings.
One of our favourite exercises is the Outlook diary test – how many hours in the diary are spent with those you represent rather than those you represent students to. SU board members here just have healthier ratios.
It’s done by taking most of the university-wide boards, committees and working groups and converting those seats into assignments that students can (and do) apply for, democratically appointed rather than all elected.
That broadens the range of voices, takes load off sabbs, helps with those allegations of the person in the room not being representative (there’s usually two on each body along with non-voting deputies) and means that it’s much more likely that what we’d call sabbs have some experience of undertaking a role like this once elected.
At our end we tend to wonder how consistency is maintained – regular meetings and the sort of policy documents we’ve talked before here help with that – and we also wonder why students volunteer. The consistent answers we get are about culture – but we’d have to assume that paying them helps too.
At Stockholm reps in permanent and temporary bodies involved in educational matters receive compensation based on meeting duration – SEK 750 (£55) for 1–2 hours, SEK 1250 (£92) for 3–4 hours, SEK 1800 (£133) for 5–6 hours, and SEK 2400 (£177) for 7–8 hours. This covers preparation, attendance, and follow-up work – and additional compensation can be granted for assignments requiring significant preparatory work, as determined by the relevant body.
Oh – and if a meeting exceeds its scheduled time by 60 minutes or more, an extra SEK 200 (£15) per hour is provided. As we saw at KTH, doctoral students employed by the university receive an extension of their employment, while non-employed doctoral students are compensated like first- and second-cycle students.
And that’s all on top of module evaluation – where modules in the catalogue are accompanied by a report from last year’s exercise and module leaders are required to say what they learned and what they did:
Perhaps there has to be a slight reduction in the amount of in-class exercises and perhaps a bit more discussion of the concepts. I will actively post the resolution of any exercise that we do in the class, even if they get the answer in the class also.
Staying safe
Of course when we talk about “educational matters” that can conjure up images of endless acronyms, quality assurance processes and dry discussions on credit accumulation – but very much included is the sort of stuff we might put in a “welfare” portfolio here in the UK.
Unlike health and safety law in the UK, Sweden’s Work Environment Act includes students – and a system of student safety representatives in each university helps ensure that students’ rights to safety are upheld.
In Sweden, a “safe study environment” includes reasonable course structure and workload, clear communication and accessible information, student participation in decision-making, and fair assessment methods. It also ensures good social interaction, collaboration, and support from teachers and peers, along with a balanced workload that allows for recovery periods.
Physical study spaces have to be ergonomically designed, with proper lighting, ventilation, and noise control, and should be accessible to disabled students. And it means that universities have to provide suitable dining, break, and restroom facilities, and ensure measures against discrimination and harassment.
It all amounts to a duty of care towards students based on statutory obligations – and in cases of serious failures like inadequate risk assessments or failure to address known hazards, there can be legal consequences – something consistently rejected back in the UK both by governments and universities themselves.
Nationally, SFS runs a network for faculty and school level student safety reps, publishes a detailed guide, and itself then publishes reports arising from their experiences.
Of course even in Sweden not every issue is handled by a board or committee, and even then those bodies often receive “summative” papers where the opportunities for influence are limited.
Here students even have a legal right to representation when decisions or preparations are made by a single individual, as outlined in Section 7, Chapter 2 of the Higher Education Act. That means that student representatives must be informed and consulted in advance of such decisions, ensuring transparency and student participation, and can include those made by the university’s President (VC), University Director, deputy vice presidents, deans, and department heads.
The decision-maker has to facilitate the student input, documentation and papers have to explain how consultation was conducted, and student reps have to be given enough time to provide feedback through meetings or electronic communication.
At departmental level, decisions requiring student consultation include matters related to courses and programs, the study environment, and the appointment of key academic positions like program coordinators and examiners. Departments have to maintain and present records of individual decisions affecting students.
Then on formative, the law also establishes that students must have representation in preparatory or investigative bodies of major significance, like steering and supervisory committees. And yes – decisions over budgets, resources, and administration are crucial to education and student welfare, so they also require student input.
Teacher time
It’s partly these sorts of arrangements that then feed crucial policy interventions nationally. A brilliant report from SFS published today says that Sweden has the lowest teacher-led teaching time in several subject areas compared to other European countries. It says that with an average of only 10 hours of teacher-led instruction per week, Swedish higher education is falling behind internationally, leading to Elsa Berlin, vice-chair of SFS, to stress that meeting teachers is essential for learning and a good study environment, and that self-study cannot replace direct interaction between students and teachers.
With the UK currently making fairly savage cuts across the board, it does feel like this sort of intervention is missing from our national discourse back home.
The wider system of student influence means that SFS has been able to publish impressive reports, with local SU input, on other things too – housing, research policy, HE budgets, academic freedom and this one on teaching quality and student learning – where five key areas for universities, faculties, and departments are highlighted: student influence, course evaluations, pedagogical training for teachers, incentives for merit, and quality assurance.
At the individual teacher level, SUs talked about the importance of training in higher education teaching, course design and development, responsiveness, communication, and course evaluations – and two aspects were frequently mentioned: increasing teacher-led time and prioritizing campus-based teaching.
The qualification of higher education teaching competence is also in there, and work-based education and interestingly internships were viewed as the most beneficial assessment methods for student learning.
More tomorrow, when we’ll be rounding up some of the stuff we saw in Uppsala.
