ITM speeds up lifelong learning

"Anders Johansson is overall responsible for lifelong learning at KTH, and he has an assignment from president Sigbritt Karlsson to increase our further education and commissioned education. If these areas to increase from 2 to 20 percent, we need to have more people working with this at a school level, so ITM is the first to dedicate a person working specifically with lifelong learning".

Why does this suit you?

"I have worked with commissioned education and skills development for professionals since 2011. My main job at Lean Center is to plan and hold courses and seminars, and also manage networks, for the industry and the public sector, so this is my backyard".

What are you going to do?

"Above all, we need to find out what courses we want to offer. It is about mapping out what’s needed out there - for example in industry.

Then we have to get the courses into our administrative system. We have great structures and processes for education and research, but if we are to invest heavily in further education, we must find routines for these courses, which do not follow the basic education processes and deadlines.

Also, our future staffing must be reviewed to cope with this rapid change, at present there is already a lot of pressure on our teachers.

What’s the biggest challenge?

"There are several, including those mentioned above. Another is to move fast and get good quality in web training. But we have proven that we can do that. At Lean Center, we put together a web-based course in a few days. It was a course in sustainable leadership for, above all, laid-off managers at Scania. It was very much appreciated - 13 occasions in Zoom, a total of 20 participants. The course was free of charge and served as a pilot. Recently, the course was included in the late admission to KTH in July, and 150 people applied for the 20 places. So we can deliver when needed, even if it sometimes challenges the system".

Text: Anna Gullers