Education programs for several socially critical professions are losing students. At higher education engineering programs, half of the students do not take their degree, at the basic teacher training programs 39 percent. At the nurse training programs, 26 percent disappear during the education.
It costs for the educational institution, since they receive less income when a student drops out. It costs for the student who has spent time and taken out a student loan, and it costs for the taxpayers, says audit director Ann-Mari Skorpen.
Can't do enough
The National Audit Office sees in its review that the two most common reasons for dropping out of the three vocational education programs are weak prior knowledge in Swedish and/or mathematics and wrong choice – the realization that one should have opted for something else.
Expanding study guidance further could counteract some of the dropouts due to wrong choices. But addressing the lack of prior knowledge is much more difficult.
The National Audit Office notes that "lenient grading", when high school students who should have received an F get passing grades, places unrealistic demands on university teachers. Therefore, it is welcome that the government has allowed an investigation into grade inflation. But it will take time before the investigation's proposals become reality.
"Not easy"
Raising admission requirements, which has been proposed for teacher training programs, results in fewer students and thus reduced opportunities to meet the labor market's needs, according to the National Audit Office. The agency points out that many of those with low merit values from high school actually complete their higher education.
It's not easy to solve this problem. There is no "quick fix", says Ann-Mari Skorpen.
One of the agency's recommendations to the government is to set higher demands on students. Today, students do not need to report that they are leaving their education, let alone why, which sends a signal that the place they got is associated with few demands, according to the National Audit Office. Mandatory reporting is entirely central if universities are to be able to work preventively.
The National Audit Office recommends that the government:
Introduce regulations requiring students to report dropout/withdrawal from their education.
Clarify what applies to students and universities if students are absent for a long period.
Let the University and College Council investigate expanded study guidance to reduce dropouts and wrong choices.
Source: The National Audit Office's report Universities' work against dropout from vocational education programs.
