Quality of education must improve and in my view enhanced student influence is crucial to its achievement. I want to make it very clear that students play a crucial part in creating higher education. Students are not customers or clients but responsible adults who shape higher education in collaboration with academic staff. It is after all students who benefit the most from high-quality education and suffer the most when standards fail. They know that their academic studies will have to stand them in good stead, perhaps for decades of their working life.
Students clearly have very strong motives for contributing to improved educational standards.
Making course evaluation mandatory in Sweden sends this signal loud and clear to higher education institutions. Course evaluation results must also be made public, taken seriously and used as important input in course development. Student unions must be represented in all decision-making and preparatory bodies in higher education institutions in Sweden, and clear rules should be laid down to that effect. It is important that the academic leadership learn to appreciate student input in the decision making process. At national level I am having what I hope may be described as a constructive dialogue with the National Union of Students.