Umeå University granted entitlement to award vocational teacher education degree

"It is gratifying that the university's application has been positive," says Björn Åstrand, Dean of Umeå School of Education."Umeå University has a long tradition of vocational teacher training. It is an important education, one of several of our many academic programmes, and with regional importance,"

The new vocational teacher education degree has Swedish as the language of instruction and will start in the autumn of 2012.

In the spring of 2010, the government reached a decision that Sweden would offer four new teacher education degrees in the autumn of 2011: preschool teacher education, primary school teacher education, subject-specific teacher education and vocation teacher education. All universities and university colleges that wished to have the right to grant degrees were had to apply to the Swedish National Agency for Higher Education. In the first decision period there were some institutions that were not granted to right to award degrees for all the subject areas sought. These institutions were able to apply again, which Umeå University chose to do.

The first application by Umeå University was denied by the National Agency for Higher Education based on the reasoning that course syllabi and other steering documents were deemed incomplete. 

"Umeå University has undertaken major reforms in the field of teacher education and the process did not go hand in hand with the National Agency's timetable for the assessment last year," says Björn Åstrand.

The updated application has now been assessed based on the continued development work to be carried out in the autumn.

Contact persons:

Björn Åstrand, Dean of Umeå School of Education
E-mail: bjorn.astrand@use.umu.se Phone: +46 (0)90-786 55 50
Mobile: +46 (0)70-642 42 12

Anders Fällström, Deputy Vice-Chancellor for Education
E-mail: anders.fallstrom@adm.umu.se
Mobile: +46 (0)70-493 85 27

Editor: Carina Dahlberg