The Rectorate’s Column
To what extent does the Master’s Degree Reform dictate a transformation of SDU’s degree programmes?
I imagine SDU as a beautiful, classic sailboat – fast and high-quality. Out on the open ocean, where the weather is changeable – sometimes beautiful, sometimes harsh. It is important that the right charts are being used, that we agree on the course and that all skills on board are utilised in the best possible way. We need to be well-coordinated and agile when the weather changes and exploit our strengths in all weather conditions.
We work in an unpredictable world. The ink was barely dry from intensive work on the institutional plan in response to the political agreement on More and better educational opportunities throughout Denmark when the Reform Commission released their first report New Reform Paths 1 in April 2022. I can clearly see the hallmark of the Reform Commission in the Master’s Degree Reform that finally landed at the end of June this year.
The Master’s Degree Reform means that we must convert 30% of the student places on graduate programmes to shorter and/or more business-oriented variants. There are still many details that we don’t know and that need to be worked on by the Master’s Committee, where all the universities are represented by their rectors. The work of the Master’s Committee will commence next week and is expected to last for at least a year. Read more in the SDU news item issued on 28 June 2023.
We are not only facing the reorganisation of a significant part of our master’s degree programmes. Next year, the entire future landscape of educational institutions will be debated, and a reform of our admissions system is probably also in the pipeline.
Add to this a demographic with fewer young people and changing search patterns – more gap years and increased mobility towards the largest cities are probably part of the explanation. At the same time, there is a call for more localised university education in most of our region, and companies and public sector workplaces want more and highly specialised labour.
This is where I will pause – I hope you haven’t thrown in the towel, because we need everyone. It will be a complex and challenging, but also an exciting, time, and I look forward to working together to create the foundation for the university programmes of the future. I believe that SDU has precisely the foundation and the prerequisites needed for us to move confidently into the future.
We have done important work together in the preparation of SDU’s 2030 Strategy: Value, quality, people. In our strategy, we have set an ambitious and long-term course where we focus on our values and priorities. We will need these factors in a changing world and we must constantly focus on how we as a university can focus on how the great effort we put in every single day in our work with and around our teaching and education programmes can yield the greatest value.
While Master’s Degree Reform is certainly our brainchild, we’ve worked hard to mitigate the outcome throughout the maturation period. While it’s smaller in scale than we initially feared, it’s still a major task that has been placed on us. It’s hard to predict the impact of the reform, but this is where we need to take our share of responsibility for the future of education. We need to take the helm and – based on our values and priorities – set the sails right and be ready to adjust them along the way. We must do this together, and we must utilise our strengths and create the education portfolio of the future with SDU’s 2030 Strategy as the overarching framework.
The Master’s Degree Reform dictates more collaboration with business and public workplaces. SDU is already doing really well in this regard. We have a solid foundation for existing collaborations with business networks and municipalities, which I feel is very strong and which will be crucial in the work we are about to get started on. We have a set task ahead of us to become better at creating learning and education for people in employment. The ball is in our court, and we need to turn this task into maximising value creation for and with society.
The reform takes some significant steps towards welcoming more international students. This is great news, and I have been awaiting this wind of political change with anticipation, as I believe talented international students and attractive international learning environments are crucial for the further development of SDU’s journey towards becoming a world-class university.
We have a host of positive experiences to build on – and it is very important to me that we focus on the fact that internationalisation is not just about changing languages. We must take responsibility for the full package of internationalisation – from recruiting talented students to retaining international graduates in Denmark. I find there is great potential and willingness to enter into strong partnerships with municipalities and businesses in our region, which is intent on supporting this agenda.
These are important and major changes – but from my perspective, we are in a good place with great potential to move strongly into the future, together.
