The migration costs for last autumn forces the Swedish government to cut down on whatever can be cut down. That is why the government chooses to cancel the previously promised 303 million SEK to the universities and colleges of the country.
A week before Christmas, the management at Lund University received a less than welcomed gift.
In their budget proposition, the government had previously announced that 303 million SEK would be allocated between universities and colleges in the country. But in the concluding appropriation directions from the government, the allocation was cut.
On 18 December, the same day the decision was reached, the Minister for Higher Education and Research, Helene Hellmark Knutsson, e-mailed all concerned vice-chancellors, informing them that the allocation had been withdrawn.
”Feels cruddy”
The money was to be used for quality promoting efforts in higher education during 2016. How large an amount Lund University was to be allocated had not been announced, but Tim Ekberg anticipated an allocation in the 30-millions.
”It feels a little cruddy, of course. It is unfortunate that the government treats their institutions like this”, says Tim Ekberg, head of planning at the University.
Will not harm the education
Because of the vague magnitude of the dispensation, the University did not account for the millions in their own resource allocation for 2016. This means that the non-payment will not result in a blow to any of the programmes at the University.
”We decided on our own resource allocation at a board meeting in October. We knew that this was side money and had therefore not placed it at any of the faculties”, Tim Ekberg says, adding:
”It will not harm any of our current programmes, but we have had plans and ideas for how it could have been used in quality promoting efforts.”
The lack of money will, however, hit the planned humanitarian efforts at the University. Previously, the main track for the University had been to use the money in a quality effort to integrate educated asylum seekers through a shortened university education and degree validation.
”The money could have been used for assisting integration of newly arrived people and for complementary education. That is costly work, we have never done this to any greater degree before and it would have helped those efforts. Now, we will not be able to do this the way we wanted and planned for”, Tim Ekberg says.
The money is needed for refugee reception
Minister Helene Hellmark Knutsson writes in her e-mail to the vice-chancellors that the decision to withdrawn the millions was made because of the increasing costs in connection to the reception of refugees in the country.
”This cost limitation is a necessary part of meeting the heavy cost increase we have seen during 2016 due to the large amount of people fleeing war and terror seeking asylum in Sweden”, is part of what she writes.
Thus, money that would eventually have been used for integration of newly arrived refugees through the University will now be allocated to the government’s own work. Tim Ekberg is critical of the constant relocation of money.
”It is very counterproductive. It is unfortunate that money ends up circulating and that the people capable of making the best decisions when it comes to ranking up quality in the reception will not be able to”, he says and continues:
”Now, the money will be used to cover other areas in the black holes that is the state finances of our financial department, more acute costs. We will probably never see it again, and that is of course unfortunate.”
There is understanding
On the other hand, Tim Ekberg adds that the decision was not completely unexpected and that he understands the difficult situation that the government currently faces.
”I am not all that surprised at this. I had picked up hints of this nature and that we could not take this money for granted. At the same time, you have to have understanding for how suddenly this current situation has sprung on the government, leading to stressed state finances”, he says.
Translation: Carl-William Ersgård
