In this post Maria Söderholm and her colleagues from the Student Services and Support department (Anna Pallin, Tomas Lilja, Thomas Wahlström, Richard Hartvik and Shireen Mallkoo) at Umeå University discuss their work in supporting migrants moving to Sweden to access education and the labour market. Umeå University is located in the City of Umea in Northern Sweden.

At the student support and guidance department we work in a preventative and supportive way to help students through their university studies and prepare them for their careers. Social justice is an important part of our practice and indeed of all education and career guidance in Sweden. Policy in Sweden explicitly states that career guidance and counselling should inform and guide students in their career choices in ways that counteract stereotypes and restrictions based on beliefs about gender or on social or cultural background.

In addition to working with current and prospective students, we also work with the local and regional communities by providing information and guidance and inspiring and motivating people to increase engagement in higher education. Our aim is to make higher education accessible for everyone, reguardless of where they come from or who they are. In society, there are norms, assumptions and power relations that create inequalities amongst people. These barriers might be difficult for the individual and groups in the society to overcome. We believe that it is our mission as career practitioners to support individuals and groups to overcome these barriers.  

Supporting migrants

In 2015 Sweden received a large number of refugees and the question of how Umeå University could help these individuals in their integration into society was discussed.

The University, in association with the Swedish Migration Board, invited 250 asylum seekers to the university campus. The purpose was to provide asylum seekers within the county with information about future studies, internships and the labour market in Sweden. Umeå University’s central student support and guidance also offered individual guidance to these individuals. Our conclusion from this day was that the information came too early for these individuals as they mainly had questions about residence permits and work opportunities, which they needed to address to the Swedish Migration Board.

We then determined to start a project to engage further with new migrants at a later point in their integration process. More specifically, when the individuals received residence permits and started studies at the municipality course in Swedish for Immigrants, which is an education for adult immigrants who wish to acquire basic skills in the Swedish language and about Swedish every day, society and work life.  

How we worked with the migrants

The first aim of the project was to develop a website with information about higher education studies at Umeå University for people who are new to Sweden. The webpage was a cooperation between the department of communication and the central student support and guidance at Umeå University.

The second aim was to provide seminars at Umeå campus for groups of newly arrived migrants who were studying on the municipality’s course in Swedish for Immigrants. The seminars including information explaining higher education, the subjects that you could study, how the student aid system worked and exploring the Swedish labour market for individuals that have a university education.

The seminars were held in Swedish, therefore the seminars were profiled for participants who were in their final municipality course of Swedish language.  During  2017 and 2018 we have delivered 4 seminars on campus each year.

The project went well and we cooperated effectively with the municipality’s course in Swedish for immigrants. As a result we have increased migrants engagment with careers services and interest in higher education.  

We have also learnt that it is easier to work with migrants who have gone further in the integration process. They have the Swedish language skills and wider understanding of Swedish society, educational system and labour market to make better use of career guidance and counselling.

We are now delivering these seminars regularly as part of our ongoing work with the community.