Dear all,
A lot has happened on the teaching front this academic year.
Our study programs have recently undergone an external periodic program evaluation by two different committees. In response to these evaluations, three internal working groups, one for the professional program, one for the bachelor's program, and one for the master's program, have diligently worked on recommendations for follow-up of the reports.
The working groups, a collaborative effort involving teachers from the various study programs, student representatives, the study administration and myself, have formulated recommendations that will be sent to the faculty on 20 June. The Program Council will then start working with the recommendations in the autumn.
Allow me to highlight some of our proposals. In line with the external committee's recommendation, we are considering adding a 40-group to the bachelor's program. This will foster more interdisciplinarity and freedom of choice, allowing students to combine psychology subjects with other subjects and build their own academic profiles. Hopefully, it will also contribute to enhancing bachelor's students' academic identity.
We will continue to strengthening the working relevance of the bachelor's and master's programs and also consider adding more practical training elements. Establishing alumni networks for our various master's programs is in the starting pit.
For the professional program, both in previous feedback from NOKUT and the periodic program evaluation, the importance of ensuring sufficient competence and practice throughout the study, both with children, adults, and older people, was emphasized. The working group considers that it is crucial that the professional program has a consistent life course perspective, and various opportunities for strengthening this perspective are emphasized in the recommendations.
Another significant development related to our social mission is to educate psychologists for the whole country, particularly for the South-Eastern Health Region, where UiO and PSI are located. Innlandet reports a significant shortage of psychologists. To meet this, PSI aims to establish a decentralized study model with practice-based teaching in Innlandet in close collaboration with Innlandet Hospital Trust (SIN) to increase the number of qualified psychologists in the region.
A working group and a steering group consisting of members from both PSI and the Faculty of Social Sciences and SIN are currently working to develop the decentralized study model and will submit their proposal in October.
As you can see, there is a lot of exciting and challenging development work on the teaching side ahead of us in the coming autumn. But first, fortunately, a well-deserved summer holiday is just around the corner. I want to end this editorial by expressing my heartfelt gratitude for your fantastic effort in giving our students excellent and inspiring teaching this semester. I wish you all a pleasant and restful holiday!