non-resident fees at Swedish universities starting 2011

As board readers know, I was enrolled in the web-based MBA program at BTH and I've been accepted to a distance Masters in health sciences at Kristianstad University. These programs are tuition-free for both Swedes and non-Swedes. There's been talk of tuition fees for overseas students for sometime. Now, the latest claims is they will start in January 2011.

No clue as to whether distance studies will be treated any differently.

From The Local

http://www.thelocal.se/19410/20090512/?utm_source=email&utm_medium=email&utm_content=82

The Swedish government’s proposal to charge university tuition fees to non-European students has been postponed by one year, Anders Steinwall of the Ministry of Education told The Local.

<snip>

“Fees could be introduced starting 2011, no earlier,” said Steinwall. The bill won’t be presented to parliament until October this year. If passed, initiating the charges will take time to coordinate.

The proposed bill states each university would be able to decide its own fees, but Steinwall said the estimated average is 70,000 to 80,000 kronor ($9,000 to $10,000) per year. ​

Judging from the responses on the Local discussion board, there is resentment especially of affluent Chinese. One writer claimed that the US is a preferred education destination because

universities in USA do not consider plagiarism which is the biggest crime in sweden. ​

So as for now, programs are still FREE

As I've written before, programs are listed at

https://www.studera.nu/studera/1374.html

While I have not done a comprehensive analysis, among distance Master's degrees found include: social anthropology, film ethnology, information science, informatics, adult learning, library and information science, energy engineering, Digital Curation, Information Security, The Religious Roots of Europe, Geographical Information Systems, Communication for Development, Child Studies

Note that some of these are one year master's (60) while others are two years (120).

Graduate certificates (roughly half a Masters degree): English literature, Media Studies, Intelligent Technology, Games Production

Finally, there are literally dozens of individual courses on both the undergraduate and graduate levels.

 

Thanks for the update.

Roscoe

 

Sounds Fun

Thanks for posting.

I thought, "Gee...that sounds like fun"...

... so I registered for "UMU-16004 - Viking Age Societies in Scandinavia. Historical and Archaeological perspectives ".

 

Viking Age Societies

Will you be applying this toward a degree? I would be interested to know how that goes.

 

I was really thinking about going for the Anthropology Master, but taking a look at how the class is run, it's a real toughy. It requires taking part of weekly scheduled skype sessions, weekly reading and 3 page assignments, some bigger projects which someone has dispute verbally during the skype sessions and so on. If they are talking about full time study they really mean it...

 

It's not clear in the article if the tuition issue will be applied to distance education programmes if and when they go into effect.

 

I am interested in this class solely for grins and giggles.

I am not certain if I can get my information to them in enough time. I am also uncertain if I will be accepted based on space considerations.

If I am accepted, I will be glad to provide updates.

 

When taking individual courses at a distance, is it required to travel to Sweden for final exams? I am planning to pass this along to some folks who might be interested in taking courses, but probably would not be up for flying to Sweden. Warguns, care to comment?

 

Swedish course meetings

At https://www.studera.nu/studera/1374.html courses may be sorted by mode, including distance. One can then check the individual description for required meetings. Even if required meetings are indicated, one can check with the course coordinator as to whther they are really required; someimes not.

 

Thanks for posting this! I've been through this search several times but I see no listing of the graduate certificates. Any idea how to narrow it down to just certs? I see many single courses in these subjects but nothing about a comprehensive grad cert program. Thanks again for this listing. This board is worth its weight in gold for sure.

*EDIT* I see many of the independent courses for example in Intelligent Technology. Do these courses just combine to make the grad cert? I don't see any mention of that in the course description. All of these subjects (minus English lit) look interesting to me.

 

certificates from Sweden

I have to admit that finding these certificates is far from obvious. Nota bene, I am by no means an expert in Swedish education, so I suggest you always contact each program personally. Also, I can read no Swedish so all my information is taken from the English versions of the web pages which may be imperfectly translated.

First, some background, as I understand it. Sweden adheres to the European ECTS system of units or credits. Generally, a single graduate course is 7.5 credits. A masters degree can be either 60 credits or 120 credits.

However, the English term "course" can apply to a single course (7.5) units or a collection of them (15, 30, 60, or 120). Alternately, the term "programme" is used for the latter, but its use is inconsistent.

Generally, a "course" of more than 7.5 units but fewer than 60 leads to a certificate. It may not be labeled thus on https://www.studera.nu/studera/1502.html so you may have to look at the syllabus that is posted for that course.

So far as I am aware. completing several 7.5 unit courses does not lead to a certificate unless they are part of a "programme". Or maybe they award a "certificate" of some kind for each and every 7.5 course. Check with them.

____________________
For example Karlstads offers a distance Masters (120 credits) in Global Media Studies

http://www.kau.se/en/education/programmes/PR1144

As part of that masters, and offered separately, is what Swedes call a "course", Media and Communication Studies

IV http://www.kau.se/en/education/courses/MKAD10

which is actually a certificate program. It's longer than a single "course" at 30 credits and a certificate is awarded at its completion

http://www.intra.kau.se/dokument/?q=docs/archive/MKAD10:en:c

___________________________________

So here's the procedure to find programs, as I understand it.

Go to https://www.studera.nu/studera/1502.html

Choose "Second Cycle (Masters) from the top menu. You're now at https://www.studera.nu/studera/1499.html

Choose "Course search" fro the menu on the left. Now you're at https://www.studera.nu/aw/courseGuide.do?lang=en

Choose the term you want to start. (Most programs begin in September, so if you choose one of the other dates, the selection will be limited). Choose the subject that you're interested in. Note that there are often different names used for similar subjects (computer science, computing, information technology). You have to search each one individually.

Let's try "information technology"

Choose "All Universities" on the next screen"

On the screen "How would you like to study", choose "Second Cycle" (under Courses) and "Entrants with prior HE credits" under Study Programmes. Choose "Distance Learning".

Only one result: Intelligent Technology – Scientific Work 30.0 Points http://www.ltu.se/edu/course/B70/B7001N?l=en

Because this is 30 units, I believe a certificate is awarded but the syllabus isn't posted. Check with the contact listed on the page.
_______________________________

You'll note that the search opening page https://www.studera.nu/studera/1502.html has a choice for "Distance Learning" apart from the portal I suggested (Second Cycle). Although that choice states it searchs for programmes, apparently it doesn't very well.

_______

Good luck

 

Thank you warguns. I believe that the issue with finding them has been that the search function needs an overhauling. As I was reading more I noticed that some (single) course listing showed the prereqs needed to enroll. I believe that this is where you would end up with a cert at some point. I will email them and ask directly then post the answer to this thread. My main problem is not being able to read the language because even though most of it is in English there are some redirected pages that are Swedish. Even web translation pages miss quite a few of the words leaving me with a few words in both languages. Thanks again for your help!

 

English in Sweden

This isn't actually related to distance education except as it reflects English usage in Sweden.

If one Googles "Swedish Armed Forces", the first item is http://forsvar.fileflat.com/english/

This is a recruitment page for Swedish military officers! Sweden must be the only country in the world that recruits military officers on a web page in a foreign language!

Actually, it makes perfect sense. There are only about nine million Swedes so not much of the web is written in Swedish. Swedes surfing the web are probably much more likely to be doing it in English than in Swedish. Consequently, they're more likely to encounter the ad if it's in English.

 

Hmmmm....very, very interesting.