Partnership for international students

Purpose and goal

The project´s aim has been to understand and overcome the obstacles faced by international students in their attempts to enter the Swedish labor market. On the basis of the increased understanding achieved by the project, a number of training modules has been developed and tested on a group of international students. These efforts have proven successful and contributed to several of the participating students managed to get a job in Sweden.

Expected results and effects

During the project, over 100 international students from BTH participated in the activities offered. Students have in this way improved their chances of finding a job in Sweden while the regional supply of IT skilled workforce has been increased. The project has also resulted in stronger collaboration between the university and the region´s IT companies. The project´s focus on Indian students has also contributed to the development of the relations with our Indian university partners.

Planned approach and implementation

The project was structured as a traditional development project where work began with a broad collection of experiences and viewpoints from local companies and regional authorities, the university ´s faculty and international students, as well as from our Indian partner universities. Based on this material, two training modules and a number of complementary activities were developed, tested and revised in three iterations. This set-up has worked well although the commitment among the students participating in the various test runs in some cases could have been better.