Debate: Longer education does not benefit learning

Today, education tends to become longer and longer, while knowledge becomes obsolete faster and faster. Higher education should shorten basic education and instead offer more opportunities for education throughout life, write representatives of the think tank Digital Utmaning, which wants the government to investigate lifelong learning.

Digitalization is creating major changes in society as automation and robotics evolve both the production of goods and services. Smarter systems are taking over routine tasks, while the workforce is moving towards more complex and creative tasks. The pace of change is high, placing greater demands on continuous training. If we are to successfully adapt the workforce to these rapid changes, we need an education system that allows for lifelong learning, not just the first 20 years.

Today, the think tank Digital Utmaning submits a letter to the government in the form of a committee directive in which we propose an investigation to fundamentally rebuild the Swedish higher education system to adapt to a rapidly changing world.

The education system of primary, secondary and tertiary education assumes that knowledge acquired during 12-20 years of youth will last throughout working life. Moreover, primary education is tending to become longer, while knowledge is becoming increasingly obsolete. The shortest courses in upper secondary education are now three years long, and university courses, which used to be three years long, are now both four and five years long. This is probably the wrong way to go. Universities should shorten undergraduate education and instead offer more opportunities for lifelong learning, either part-time alongside work or in regular full-time periods.

If education is spread over a lifetime, funding needs to be reviewed, as does the question of where education should take place. In many cases, young people without dependents can live cheaply and live anywhere, but professionals often cannot. We need a system that provides incentives for those in work to undertake continuous training and we need to make it easier for them to pursue adult and higher education. This can be done by spreading training geographically, providing qualified teaching online and creating tools for individual learning. But this requires new systems where the responsibility between the individual, the public sector and the social partners should be discussed. The solution may be some form of "skills accounts" for lifelong learning.

In Sweden, we have a wide range of formal education alongside higher education in the form of vocational colleges and municipal adult education, but also non-formal education such as corporate staff training, knowledge and staffing companies and popular education. There is also informal learning via books, courses and online education, not least so-called moocs (massive open online courses). However, it is difficult for individuals to find their way around this wealth of opportunities because there is no organized study guidance outside higher education institutions. It should be possible to offer both validation of courses and advice to individuals independently of higher education institutions. It should also be possible to establish formalized cooperation between higher education and other forms of education to create a coherent system of education and learning that is accessible and relevant throughout life.

An important issue to resolve in a new education system is how examinations should be conducted and organized. Today, it is the institution that educates that also examines. We should examine whether examinations can and should take place outside the educational institutions. We have a problem with grade inflation and we also need to examine all knowledge, regardless of where and how it was learned. Not least, those who have learned through non-formal education need to be able to get a generally recognized proof of the knowledge actually acquired. This is important not only to verify the progress of lifelong learning, but also to validate the knowledge and skills of all those who have been educated outside Sweden. One could envisage a model of independent examiners accredited by an authority, in the same way that an authority currently accredits vehicle inspections.

We know that there are already studies that touch on some of what we propose, but no study takes a holistic approach and no one has the task of unconditionally questioning the entire system. Primary, secondary and higher education have served us well for 150 years, but the changes in society in general and the economy in particular are now so powerful that we can talk about a systemic shift similar to the one we went through in the second half of the 19th century.

What we are entering - call it the information society, the second machine age or the fourth industrial revolution - is leading to the automation of tasks, and the only clear way to manage the transition without unemployment and social unrest is through further education. The education system needs to be examined and probably fundamentally reformed to provide lifelong learning.

Digital Challenge consultation on education and transition:

Gunnar Karlsson Professor KTH

Mikaela Almerud works with higher education issues at the Confederation of Swedish Enterprise

Åsa Händel Academy North

Anders Jonsson senior advisor on social policy issues at Saco

Kenneth Abrahamsson Adjunct Professor of Human Work Science at Luleå University of Technology

Valentino Berti IT management consultant

Per Fagrell works with the industry's skills supply within Teknikföretagen