The “knowledge society” is the catchphrase. But in Sweden it is administered by career politicians without academic qualifications of any significance.
As an opinion piece in the SvD points out:
Even the new Löfven government thinks that politically groomed ministers without any special academic background or insight into the conditions of research should lead Sweden into the “knowledge society”. One can no longer imagine a Swedish prime minister with a doctoral degree or an education minister with a professorship ……
Science is and remains the largest and most important knowledge generator in society. One might therefore think that the ministers and other politicians who will lead us into the “knowledge society” – a mantra repeated by the new Löfven government – would themselves possess especially high academic competence and particular insight into the conditions of the search for scientific knowledge.
However, nothing could be more wrong.
Nor is the new government Löfven more familiar with knowledge acquisition than other groupings. One may be glad that the newly appointed Minister for Higher Education and Research has read more than a few extra courses and that the Minister of Justice, who is also responsible for migration issues, has at least a Bachelor’s degree. In law? No, in political science.
We can compare this with the German government, where Merkel himself is a PhD physicist and the former Minister of Education was a professor of mathematics. Almost all ministers in the new German government have an academic degree, of which six are PhDs.
………..Unfortunately, there are no clear signs that the new Löfven government will be able to even identify the underlying system errors, let alone take measures and steps to actually fix them.
The talk about Sweden as a knowledge nation will therefore also in the future be in ironic contrast to the political reality.
Tags: academic qualifications
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