Written by Anders Fromm Dall
In 2014, Denmark had 25.546 international students. At university level, international students made up 10 percent of the total number of enrolled students and, since 2008, the total number of international students in Denmark has almost doubled. International students constitute a substantial part of particularly Danish higher education and thus they experience the same kinds of joys, excitements, challenges, tasks, exams, assignments, group work, deadlines, struggles, frustrations and, lately, the same cutbacks as Danish students. With this article, I intend to give a brief overview of the situation as well as kick-start our, as Danish students, willingness and responsibility to share and include the international students in the fight against cutbacks. It is their fight as much as it is ours.
As a Danish student enrolled in an international master’s degree program in Denmark, I often experience the frustrations of the international students in my class. Small things we Danes take for granted are not obvious to non-Danes, especially not if they are only communicated in Danish. The same goes for the ongoing fight against the cutbacks that have been imposed on the educational system from the highest political level. In light of the fact that many international students, through paying tuition fees and not being eligible for student support (SU), economically contribute more than Danish students to the financing of the system, it is only fair that they are included and informed about what is going on with what is also their programs and their educational institutions.
Hurry up!
“The hurry-up-reform” is the informal translation of the reform that in 2013 required all Danish universities to reduce the average amount of time it takes for its students to complete their studies (the goal is to lower it by 4.3 months before 2020). I remember that the reform was articulated in that patronizing way on the very first day in August 2015 when I met my new Danish and international classmates for the first time. It is with tongue in cheek whenever we now mention it with that name, but that does not mean the reform in itself is either humorous or should not be taken seriously.
With it an extended amount of administrative control followed, as it among other things implied that students automatically would be registered for exams and 60 ECTS points each year. Automatic registration also means no option of canceling. Students will also automatically be registered for re-examination in case they have not submitted a paper or passed an exam. Hence, it is obvious that troubles emerge if you are not on track and that you will have to catch up should you get off the government’s (fast)track. Often times, the very reason people get off track (stress, depression, crisis) is a substantial fight in itself, and with the reform, students now have to battle on two fronts should they slip even the slightest behind. Lastly, ECTS points are based on a quantitative logic meaning that just like a score or a grade, it does not say much about the actual process or the student’s ability to make use of the knowledge in practice. With an automatic registration of 60 ECTS each year, all activities are given the same value in time and thereby transforming the understanding of what “to study” is all about.
Dimensioning
The year after in 2014 another reform was announced. The reform of “dimensioning” implied that each department should limit the enrollment of students based on particular degree’s statistics for employability following graduation. In other words – programs whose grads’ qualifications currently are not in demand by the job market are to be closed, sending an explicit signal that education it is all about the outcome and not about the process. Danish education is, at least in our own eyes, known for also being much about the process or as we call it - “dannelse”. Unfortunately, “dannelse” is a term that is not as easy to explain and understand as “hygge” is. According to the Society for Danish Language and Literature, the meaning of “dannelse” in this context is “common knowledge of especially cultural areas such as art, language, literature, music and history connected to an advanced spiritual development and a cultivated appearance and way of life – as a result of good education and upbringing”.
Cutbacks
Finally, in late August 2015, the then head of the Ministry of Education and Science, Esben Lunde Larsen, announced massive cutbacks on the education sector as a whole – 8.7 million Danish kroner to be precise, including 3.3 in his own department responsible for higher education and research.
On 29th of October, an estimated 35-40.000 people demonstrated outside the walls of the parliament and one sentence in particular frustrated many of those who had showed up. In the midst of the debate the two previous months, the minister had proclaimed that the education sector as a whole was “kornfed” - a term even many Danes at the time had to look up in order to grasp the accurate meaning of. Again turning to the Society for Danish Language and Literature, the definition is: ”Big and fat – originally about poultry fatten up on grain”.
In early February 2016, Copenhagen University announced that along with 10 percent fewer Ph.D. positions around 500 members of the current staff would be dismissed as a result of the cuts. Roskilde University has announced that they intended to cut 80 positions in total while the University of Southern Denmark in April announced that 160 of their employees would be affected. Aarhus University had a big round of layoffs in 2014 and do not seem to repeat that following this round of cutbacks. Copenhagen Business School currently has a plan that prevents mass layoff but will however have to cut 129 million kroner during the next four years. Finally, Aalborg University has announced that they will also avoid a big round of lay offs, yet they still have to cut 35 million kroner in general and for research an amount in the double-digit million range. These are numbers in addition to the savings that each institution continually operates with.
Stand together
Although the above-mentioned reforms are substantial pieces of the larger puzzle, it is the economic cutbacks and their consequences that we as students right now stand up against. As the different universities have now started to be specific on where exactly they intend to cut and who they are going to dismiss, it all of a sudden comes agonizingly close to our everyday (student)lives. Thus, action has been taken in various places and ways and the magazine/website through which you are now reading this article is an example hereupon.
With this brief outline of two of the important reforms and the process of the cutbacks announced in late August, I hope international students have now gained a better understanding of the situation and that Danish students will keep their international counterparts updated as well as encourage them to participate in what should be a joint affair. Perhaps a student from either of the two groups would like to write another piece in English for next edition of “Modstand”…
Ingen kommentarer:
Send en kommentar