Sweden has declared a “system failure” in the country’s free schools, pledging the biggest shake-up in 30 years and calling into question a model in which profit-making companies run state education.
But in recent years, a drop in Swedish educational standards, rising inequality and growing discontent among teachers and parents has helped fuel political momentum for change.
A report by Sweden’s biggest teachers’ union, Sveriges Lärare, warned in June of the negative consequences of having become one of the world’s most marketised school systems, including the viewing of pupils and students as customers and a lack of resources resulting in increased dissatisfaction.
Now Lotta Edholm, a Liberal who was appointed schools minister last year during the formation of Sweden’s Moderate party-run minority coalition, has launched an investigation into the issue which, she said, would oversee her plans for reform.
A spokesperson for the Sveriges Lärare union said the government’s plans did not go far enough to address the problems, which it said included a school selection system that increased segregation and funding inequality.
Her legacy, she hopes, will be to introduce more “peace and quiet” in schools with less trouble, violence and bullying, as well as improving children’s knowledge.
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Yep, first say [public service] is a failure so we need to privatize it instead of dedicating more resource to it, then remove [public service]. Now instead of making the [public service] better for everybody, now privatizing it will cause economic inequality where the rich get richer and the poor get poorer.