Over the past five years, the Swedish Higher Education Authority (UKÄ) has reviewed 153 postgraduate programs in Sweden, of which 39 have been questioned for their quality. 14 of these programs have since been discontinued.
UKÄ is a government agency whose mandate from the government includes reviewing higher education and institutions’ systems for quality assurance.
From 2017 to 2022, the agency has reviewed 153 postgraduate programs at 27 of the country’s institutions across various subject areas. 114 were deemed to have acceptable quality, while 39 were questioned.
If a program is questioned by the agency, it means in practice that the institution must report within a year the measures taken to improve the quality; otherwise, there’s a risk that the program will be shut down. 25 out of the 39 programs that received remarks successfully presented measures approved by the agency. In 13 cases, the institutions chose to discontinue the questioned program, reports Universitetsläraren, a member magazine for Sweden’s university teachers and researchers.
For a postgraduate program in economics at Södertörn University, however, the degree accreditation was revoked after it was determined that the school was not capable of running the program on its own.
“Since there are still shortcomings concerning the current program, the institution should no longer be allowed to issue licentiate and doctoral degrees in economics”, writes UKÄ.
