A renegotiation of the agreement behind the upcoming graduate reform in the university sector is finalised. For DTU, this means that the university must continue to convert 15% of its current master's degree programmes into industry master's degree programmes.
However, whereas the university, according to initial plans, would have to convert all of these to 4-year master's programmes, DTU can now convert the programmes to an alternative 1+2 master's programme. Here, the programme's first year is taken as a full-time study with SU, while the last two years are a company course with concurrent studies.
"This is a solution we came up with ourselves, and we are very pleased that the politicians have listened. The opportunity to start studying full-time will make it much easier for international students to find a workplace," says DTU Rector Anders Bjarklev.
Together with other Danish university rectors and the National Union of Students for Higher Education, DSF, he proposed during a hearing at the Danish Parliament in late November that the alternative 1+2 business graduate model be part of the political agreement.
Need for more engineers
The creation of a 1+2 business master's programme is only applicable to the engineering and STEM/IT fields.
DTU's president sees this as a sign that politicians have listened to the industry's warnings about the engineering shortage that Denmark is already facing, which will only continue to grow.
In three years, the political parties behind the reform plan to evaluate the process. According to DTU's president, this is important to address and resolve any challenges.
"We're looking at having to recruit a large number of Danish and international students to a completely new degree programme. It will be a challenge, but we're taking a constructive approach because society needs more engineers, not fewer," says Anders Bjarklev.
The graduate reform will be fully implemented in 2032.
