Response to interpellation 2023/24:572 on examination services throughout the country
Translated from Swedish by AI; the translation may contain errors. The Swedish text is the original.
Summary AI, written in advance
The debate concerns challenges with examination services for distance students across the country. S argues that there is a shortage of places for examinations, which leads to long journeys and high fees for students 1 2. S wants the government to take action to enable remote examinations and advocates for increased cooperation between educational institutions as well as legal certainty for municipal learning centers 1 3. L emphasizes that the educational institutions are responsible for the examinations and that students have an individual responsibility to follow rules and travel to examination sites 4 5. L prioritizes quality over quantity and argues that S is driving the expansion of independent courses to hide youth unemployment 6.
Written by AI in advance and may contain errors. The numbers lead to the speech a statement builds on; check against the text below.
Utbildningsministern Mats Persson (L)
Madam Speaker! Niklas Sigvardsson has asked me what I intend to do to make it easier for students across the country to complete an examination, even as distance students.
I want to begin by stating that the opportunities to study within higher education are good in Sweden. There are colleges throughout the country and a large range of programs that are offered entirely or partially at a distance.
Distance education can be important, for example, to make it possible to pursue further education and to facilitate for students to combine work and family life with studies. At the same time, distance education places different demands on pedagogy and technology compared to campus-based education.
Experiences from the pandemic show, for example, the difficulties that exist in conducting examinations remotely in a legally secure and reliable manner. In addition to this is the technical development within AI that the interpellor mentions. It is the educational institutions that are responsible for deciding how examinations shall be conducted and for informing about the forms of examination in the syllabus well in advance of the start of the course.
I understand that requirements to conduct examinations on-site can be perceived as a problem by distance students who do not have a higher education institution in their location. At the same time, it is often possible to take an exam at another higher education institution or at a municipal learning center. Some higher education institutions also accept, under certain conditions, that the exam is taken at other actors.
In conclusion, I want to emphasize that it is also important to safeguard campus-based education in order to maintain an educational and research environment as well as a high-quality educational offer.
Niklas Sigvardsson (S)
Madam Speaker! Thank you, Minister for Education, for the answer!
It is not only the right to choose an education and to be able to get into an education that is important, but also the possibility to acquire this education and ultimately graduate from it.
The reason I submitted the interpellation to the Minister for Education is the great pressure that has been placed on distance studies all over our country. It has its advantages, but as the Minister points out, there can also be disadvantages. The mere possibility of taking exams and being examined remotely is a challenge. It is so great that across the country, there is actually starting to be a shortage of places where distance students can write their exams.
There are many different actors, such as other educational institutions, but above all, it is the municipal learning center that conducts the examinations. If we look at the websites of our educational institutions, universities, and colleges, we see that they often refer to contacting a learning center linked to Nitus, which is the municipal network for learning centers. There, it is known that the quality is good and that a legally secure assessment can be ensured.
This is, therefore, the reason why I asked the question. The experience is that students have had to start traveling very far and that the fees are skyrocketing. Then the obstacles for those who are distance students begin to become very high.
At a meeting earlier this year, I was told, for example, that students all the way from Lund travel up to Värnamo in my home region to write their exams. Now I have to be honest and say that I'm exaggerating, but it is a car journey of around two hours to get to this location and write one's exam.
This means that the obstacle is both that one has to get there and that one needs to pay a fee, which I can to some extent have understanding for. Seen in relation to the rest of the country, it also means that the distances become longer and the costs to some extent higher. Therefore, I believe that the government needs to take action on the issue and start looking at how we should enable not only entry and studies at educational institutions but also that one can be examined so that one can receive one's degree.
I listened to a previous debate here with the Minister for Education. It is extremely important that we get more people to be examined and earn their university credits. Therefore, an examination service around our country that takes place in a more secure way can be a way to get more people to be examined.
That was the reason I asked the question. I can give the minister a fairly open mandate to continue the line of thinking on how one can develop the possibilities for written exams and examinations throughout our country.
Utbildningsministern Mats Persson (L)
Madam Speaker! I shall begin by praising Niklas Sigvardsson for his exaggeration regarding how long it takes to travel between Lund and Värnamo; it takes quite exactly two hours, if I remember my E4 geography correctly. It was, therefore, an impressive exaggeration.
In other respects, I share the interpellant's view – it is naturally important that one can take exams when attending university. I know that there is currently a very large discussion taking place within the educational institutions regarding, for example, what AI means for what type of examination one can have. Should one only allow physical exams? I know that several who organize distance education are heading in that direction.
It would mean that as a student, one knows already when applying that the education takes place remotely and that there might not be any physical components in the education itself, but that the exam will take place physically. Then one knows it already when applying, and often one knows already approximately when the exam will be and can take that into account. One will at least get to know it when one is admitted, and then one can decide whether one has the prerequisites to take that course or not – i.e., whether one has the prerequisite to, for example, travel the two hours between Värnamo and Lund to take an exam physically.
Other educational institutions work with other methods to handle this, and there is also a large ongoing discussion regarding AI-related cheating at our colleges and universities. It is naturally very important that everyone who takes an exam feels that the forms of the exam ensure that there is no opportunity to cheat, that it is therefore fair, and that the grade one receives reflects the effort one has put into the course.
I believe there is reason to continue the discussion on how exams within higher education will be conducted in the future and also on what the forms for this will look like.
Niklas Sigvardsson (S)
Madam Speaker! The common denominator in this issue is that we want students who have entered a program to be able to be examined in the best possible way.
I share the minister's view of the tendency that AI is causing there to be a greater focus right now on conducting physical exams where one can have control over the environment the student is in, so that one can ensure that the knowledge is the student's and no one else's. That is how we have built up our educational society. That is how it is and must be; we must be able to trust that what is being assessed is the knowledge of the individual who has written the exam. Therefore, perhaps the outsourced exam writings will have even greater weight for a period of time, before the higher education institutions have succeeded in maneuvering in the new landscape of AI – which will not become smaller but rather larger going forward.
Distance studies have been important precisely to give students all over our country the opportunity to study. It is also about having access to a very exciting range of courses at an educational institution that is located quite far from the place where I myself live. This may therefore provide the opportunity to top up one's competence development. Then perhaps one does not have to do it within the transition study support, as we discussed in a previous debate, but can do it while working. One may feel that one has time to take an evening course or can spare a couple of hours a week to study. Therefore, the opportunity to obtain a degree by distance will also be important moving forward.
It is actually not in our most sparsely populated areas where there is the greatest shortage of such places, but it is actually in our large counties where it is hardest for students to access exam venues. If one looks, for example, at the counties that Dalarna University lists on its website before the application, one sees that it is difficult to find distance study exam venues in counties such as Västergötland, Stockholm, and Skåne. This means that it is difficult to conduct distance studies precisely where we have very many people because one is not given the opportunity to take the exam.
When I met Nitus earlier this autumn, I described the problem in the Stockholm area, where educational institutions - for example in Nynäshamn - have felt that they must stop students from Stockholm city because they cannot manage to accommodate everyone from Stockholm who seek the opportunity to write an exam. My home municipality Jönköping, which nevertheless has an educational institution in the municipality, felt compelled to open its own, municipal, learning center in order to be able to offer residents who did not study at Högskolan i Jönköping the opportunity to write distance study exams there.
This shows, once again, that municipalities feel that they need to step in and take responsibility. Even where there are state-funded educational institutions, municipalities feel a need to step in and offer the opportunity. Therefore, it becomes problematic to continue this, so I wish that we from the state side - both the Riksdag and the government - can work more on the issue so that it actually becomes possible to not only enter and study but also be examined remotely.
Utbildningsministern Mats Persson (L)
Madam Speaker! Thank you for your commitment, Niklas Sigvardsson! I believe we will have reason to continue the discussions and debates on how we can facilitate the examination of students and how one goes about finding forms of examination for those who study remotely. I note that there is much discussion in the sector and that we now see a development where more and more examinations take place physically instead of digitally. I understand that the development is moving in that direction.
As a student, one also has a personal responsibility. If one enters an education that we taxpayers are involved in financing, one has a responsibility to be able to get to the location required to take the exam. In Sweden, we have many rights, but we also have obligations. One such obligation, I believe, is that one follows the rules that exist and also that one has a personal responsibility to complete one's education and carry out the examinations that are included.
Niklas Sigvardsson (S)
Madam Speaker! I can only agree that the undersigned and the Minister will certainly have reason to discuss these issues further—if not otherwise by reason of the opinion piece on distance studies and independent courses that was published today. It is, after all, closely linked to the discussion we are having here today.
We Social Democrats believe that it will continue to be important that people can study and that one can choose from a very large range of high-quality courses and programs throughout our country. But then it also needs to be possible, just as I have said several times in this debate, to get into the education, complete the education, and be examined from the education.
Therefore, the cooperation between educational institutions needs to increase. We also need to review the possibility of making municipal – or other actors' – learning centers legally secure. There, the educational institutions themselves may have well-established contacts, for example with the association Nitus, which is a federation of municipal learning centers and where being a member is a quality stamp. If a learning center has been approved to be a member there and conduct examination activities, the educational institutions can be certain: If you send a student there, you will know that the student who is to take the exam will take it.
That is why we have this debate - so that students can study in our entire country. It is an issue that I will not let go as long as I work with these matters in the Riksdag.
Utbildningsministern Mats Persson (L)
Madam Speaker! It is true that we do not think alike on many issues. Niklas Sigvardsson questions the debate article that the undersigned had published in Svenska Dagbladet today, and it is clear that we disagree there.
The Social Democrats view higher education as a way to hide youth unemployment; they have a line where they prioritize quantity over quality and where the most important thing is that as many people as possible enroll in a course – not that people actually learn anything and earn their credits.
During the recent years of Social Democratic rule, we also saw a gigantic expansion of independent courses, not least at a distance. We also saw an emergence of courses that I believe many Swedes question. Is it really only academic institutions that can provide courses in beer knowledge, wine knowledge, etcetera? I believe that many Swedes ask themselves that question.
The government has a different approach to the policy. We ensure that the students who enter education programs receive a good education. We prioritize the technical education programs. We ensure that more money is provided so that one can have laboratories in the technical education programs. We ensure that one can carry out technical components in machine halls, so that Swedish engineers learn sufficiently. We have a completely different starting point in this than the Social Democrats do.
It is clear that there is a major ideological conflict surrounding this. Our very firm view is that higher education and academia should not be used to hide youth unemployment. We need to have a higher quality, and we prioritize that very clearly.
Source: The Swedish Parliament. The speeches come from the open data of the Riksdag, translated into English by AI, which may contain errors.