The fourth Congress on Education at Karolinska Institutet focuses on student influence. Naturally all education should be based on the current knowledge and abilities of the students, and thus students should participate in planning and feed-back. Student influence is one of the areas that is evaluated by the National Agency for Higher Education, and last year a new Government Bill stipulated extended representation for students and compulsory student evaluations. I have repeatedly been impressed by the enthusiasm and energy that students demonstrate when planning improvements.
Students also participate in educating activitivities.
Thus, the introductory residential days are handled by the students themselves. In order to guarantee the influence of both students and employees on the education and other activities at the KI, a Board of Influence was established last year. This board has to face the difficulties to recruit student representatives for the large number of committees where education is discussed and the lack of decision-making bodies at the departmental level where students could exercise influence. Last year we introduced workshops and a panel debate. These are retained, and the results from the workshops will be presented during the congress.