“It is sometimes said that Sweden has the world’s best educated taxi drivers. There are both brain surgeons and engineers in their ranks,” said higher education and research minister Lars Leijonborg in a statement.

“We don’t actually know how common that is, but it illustrates the problem that we aren’t good enough at taking advantage of the competence of immigrant academics.”

Leijonborg, along with integration minister Nyamko Sabuni presented the proposal on Thursday.

The figure represents a doubling of this year’s funding of around 50 million kronor.

Most of the new funding will go toward paying for classes for doctors and other health care professionals.

“This commitment will contribute to ensuring that foreign academics enter the labour market faster, which is highly desirable,” said Sabuni in a statement.