Last Friday, The Ministry of Higher Education and Science announced that the model for a centrally regulated limiting of the intake of students at higher educations, which was previously presented, will be changed.

The phase-in period of the scaling has been prolonged from 3 to 4 years. According to the previous model, the limitation of the intake of new bachelor students had to come into effect overnight, from 2015. This model has now been changed, so that it will also include a real phase-in of the intake at bachelor level. I am happy to see that the Ministry has become aware of the dramatic effects that the previous suggestion would have had, and has, instead, made a more realistic phase-in possible.

But let me also make one thing perfectly clear: Even though the phase-in period has been prolonged, the demand for a reduction of the number of studentships has been maintained.  At the faculty of Arts, we are, therefore, facing a major task, as we will have to carry out the reduction of the number of studentships, and of our educational activities as well. This is a task that we share with the Humanities programmes of other Danish universities, and we will, of course, be working in close collaboration with our colleagues at these institutions.

We understand that an adjustment of the intake may be necessary, in order to ensure that the intake corresponds with the future prospects, but we do not find that looking at the unemployment rates among our graduands from a retrospective angle will provide a very useful guideline for what the future prospects for your 3-5-year educations are like, especially not now that we finally seem to be at the end of a long financial crisis.

We have reason to fear that this intervention will prevent applicant, who would have a good chance of finding permanent and socially useful employment, to get a qualifying education. Furthermore, I have no intention of hiding the fact that the intervention is a severely blow to the economy of the faculty, and thus, against our research in languages, culture, international relationships, information technology, educational research, etc.

Apart from the changes, as far as the phase-in is concerned, there is another bright spot:  The minister seems to have taken the critique to heart, insofar as the previous model would inhibit mobility, making it more difficult for us to admit international students and students with Professional Bachelor´s Degrees into our Master´s programmes.  

The new model leaves room for a certain degree of flexibility: For example, it states that 10 % of the admitted students can either have an international background, or have a Professional bachelor´s degree. However, the new model still contains many undesirable elements: For one thing, it makes it financially unfavourable for universities to accept large numbers of BAs from other institutions.

Despite the adjustments, the recently presented model will weaken our ability to compete, when it comes to the quality of the educations that we offer. This goes on national and international level alike. This will make it increasingly difficult for us to develop international educations at Danish universities, not least when it comes to developing those educations where we cooperate with universities abroad.

During the latter years, the Faculty of Arts has not increased the intake of bachelor students, but has, instead, sought to develop Master´s programmes that are also attractive to international students, students with Professional Bachelor Degrees and BAs from other Danish universities. From our points of view, one of the major drawbacks of the new model is the fact that it makes it more difficult to pursue the strategy that has, during the latter years, strengthened the research and the internationalisation of the faculty, and helped us aim our educations more directly at the labour market.

In connection with an ambitious internationalisation strategy, 10 % is not very much. One of the reasons for the success of Danish universities, and Danish research in general, during the latter years has been the consequent strategies of internationalisation and mobility. Unfortunately, the current intervention in our dimensioning is based upon provincializing, encouraging universities to rely on the intake of students from their own Bachelor programmes.

In addition to all this, several peculiar features indicate that the people at the ministry may not have had time to really think the model through; what worries me most is the fact that, last Friday, we received test calculation from them ministry, showing that the universities are expected to carry out a reduction of the intake of BA students, even for those master´s programmes that has no relevant BA programme.

For us, this means that the reduction for the Department of Education (the former DPU), which has no bachelor programmes affected by the dimensioning, will have to be found at other BA programmes, here at the faculty (programmes that do not have anything to do with the pedagogical educations).

It is hard to see how this is supposed to fit into the ministerial model, according to which the reduction must take place at a `relevant BA program´, and it is also hard to see what this has to do with future prospects of employment.  

We are convinced that this must be a mistake, caused haste, and by not consulting the universities.  In justice, it must be mentioned that the ministry would for the dimensioning at Master´s level to be carried out by the universities themselves, at that the ministry is prepare to enter a dialogue concerning special conditions. We will, of course, gladly take part in such a dialogue.

Another example is theology, which is placed in the group `Classical Humanities´. Theology has a certain unemployment rate among its graduands, cause by the fact that theologians are required to participate in a pastoral seminar, before being able to apply for priesthood. Here we are faced between a choice or either limiting the intake of new students of theology, even though we know that there will be too few priest in the future, or reducing the intake at other programmes within the same group of educations, although it seems obvious that linguists and historians are very unlikely to the work away from priests.

We will, of course, gladly enter a dialogue with the ministry, in order to seek out any possible solutions, but we would have preferred for the dimensioning of theology to take place in collaboration with the relevant actors within the Lutheran Evangelical Church.

This is not the only example of the undesirable effects that come from this attempt to micromanage the labour market, with statistics for educational groups as a starting point. These statistics seem to be based, not upon knowledge regarding the character of the educations, or upon their relevance to the labour market, but rather upon statistical convenience.   

This way of arranging groups of educations may be practical seen from a statistical point of view, but it is harmful to the universities, to the students, and presumably also to future employers. Among the problems that worry me the most is the future-proofing of language educations at Danish universities.

We would have preferred a scaling based upon framing, and more in sync with the self-governing culture of the universities, as well as with the multi-faceted labour market, at which the humanistic educations are targeted.

The faculty now faces the set assignment of having to reduce the intake for 2015. The decisions regarding this will, cf. the current efforts to link the decision-making processes of the faculty closer to the academic environments at the individual departments, take the discussions at study board level as their starting point.  Cross-disciplinary questions will be discussed within the faculty management. Not until then will we initiate discussions regarding the consequences of the intervention, and regarding the reductions in the years to come.

Let there be no doubt that this task will be carried out across the individual departments, and in close cooperation with the university board of directors. The larger and more serious the challenge, the larger the obligation to live up to our key ambition of ensuring decentral involvement of staff members and students, prior to any decisions being made.

We shall continue our efforts to have the model revised further, in order to make the universities more competitive, when it comes to the quality of the educations offered, aiming to make flexibility and mobility important factors in the young people choice of education.

We will also continue our struggle to provide international students, and applicants from other educational institutions, with better access to the Master´s programmes that we offer. This is of major importance to our continuous efforts to increase internationalisation in research as well as in education, and to make sure that our educations contain a strong practical dimension, which will prove useful to the community.