The school collaboration program started in 2008 and aims to provide a platform for the exchange of experience in a diverse environment – promoting students to believe in their abilities and inspiring them to further their studies at the high school. It is a chance for students to meet professionals, participate in real-life projects and broaden their understanding of what an engineer is and does. In 2021, three of Sweden’s leading tech companies joined forces to ramp up the program and in doing so create the Nordic region’s most significant investment in school collaborations to date.
The collaboration with the schools always starts with an inspirational lecture where the students can form an opinion about the companies and the tech industry’s professions. All students in year nine are then invited to company offices where they can try out different activities to understand the day-to-day of different tech professions. Finally, the students work on a task where the aim is to create a technical innovation. The winners of this are awarded a summer job at one of the companies.
“We are really happy to sign three new schools to our program,” says Elvira Ahlring, Head of School Collaborations. “It is an essential step forwards as we develop the program and proof of the willingness for schools to get on board and that the partnership does make a difference for students.”
The collaboration with the three new schools will be planned and begin during the spring. In total, the program now supports over 550 students around Sweden. The 2025 goal is for 3,000 students so there is still plenty of room for more schools to join.
“We chose to join the program to develop a genuine partnership between school and business. We see it as a fantastic opportunity for our students to have the chance to collaborate with companies, develop a frame of reference and also integrate it with the school’s teaching. The school collaboration program gives us a unique opportunity to motivate and inspire our students for the future. It’s a great opportunity that we are really looking forward to,” says Anna Strandell, principal at Nytorpsskolan.
“Bringing real life to the theory that we teach in the classroom is incredibly meaningful for students’ continued learning,” says Hannibal Lahdo, technology teacher at Storvretskolan. “At a bare minimum, the collaboration will support teachers in their planning, implementation, and assessment of parts of the technology curriculum, which in itself is a big positive.”
“It feels both fun and exciting to step into a project like the school collaboration. Connecting schools and businesses is worth its weight in gold. On the one hand, we believe that the partnership can help us teachers to show students several educational and career paths, at the same time as it is a project that our future ninth graders can look forward to. It is about creating meaningful learning in different environments, which is now possible together with Knightec, Granitor, and Scania,” says Anna Sterlinger, Swedish and Social Sciences teacher at Glömstaskolan.
Knightec, Scania, and Granitor are very happy to welcome Storvretskolan, Nytorpsskolan, and Glömstaskolan to the school collaboration program and look forward to working with all the schools’ students in grades 8 and 9.
If you want to know more or are interested in participating in the school collaborations, don’t hesitate to contact elvira.ahlring@knightec.se.