Resource Decline in Higher Education - Perceptions and Consequences

Abstract

Teaching students is one of the main tasks of LTH, as thousands of students engage on their engineering studies at the faculty every year. The funding for teaching these students is an essential source of income for LTH, but during the latest years, there has been an increased worry for diminishing financing for lecturing at the faculty. This study aims to investigate how lecturers perceive the development and what practical measures they have taken in their courses to counteract it. Also, the study briefly investigates the actual development of funding and costs for teaching at LTH. Interviews with an economist at LTH and ten lecturers at the department of Building and Environmental technology were performed. It was found that the funding for lecturing is not declining in absolute terms, but since the costs for salaries and rent increases in a faster pace, the end effect is that lecturer have to manage their courses in a shorter time. Many different practical strategies for dealing with the situation were documented during the interviews. The strategies are mainly focusing on making the students do more of the work on their own, e.g. working with the course literature. But the approaches to the problem varied greatly, as some lecturers tried to change as little as possible in order to save time, and others who saw a need for restructuring the entire educational program.