Preschool

Fredrik Malm (L)

Mr. Speaker! We now have to debate the preschool and a number of motions and requests, not least from the general motion period, which the Education Committee has tackled with diligence and vigor in the service of the preschool.

Mr. Speaker! Previous generations in Sweden have not only fought to introduce and build up Swedish democracy, parliamentarism, and the constitutionally protected civil liberties. Parallel to this, they have also fought to build a welfare state in Sweden. The principle is that everyone participates and pays, and that everyone gets something out of the welfare when they need it. Those are the principles of the universal welfare.

The idea with this is that when we are very young and also very old, we get much more out of the welfare system because we then do not work and pay taxes. This is, among other things, so that we can go to preschool, where the foundation for lifelong learning is laid. We grow as individuals, we grow socially, and the horizon for our life opportunities is widened very much by going to preschool.

The Swedish preschool must, of course, now be understood against the background of the broader developments in the country. In Sweden, we see nothing less than a knowledge collapse today. Last year's results in the PISA measurement were catastrophic, with the largest drop in knowledge levels regarding reading and mathematics since the base year 2012. Children and young people spend more and more time at screens and tablets and less and less time in front of books and folders. The result has indeed been impaired reading ability. It is clear and directly tragic that we are an educational country where fewer can read and that we are a country built by engineers where fewer can calculate properly. Less screen time is needed in school and not least in preschool.

Skolverket sent out the national digitalization strategy for consultation last year. In its consultation response, Karolinska Institutet states that screens risk leading to poorer language development, hindering learning, and contributing to concentration difficulties. Lund University states that for the very youngest, screen interaction is wasted time from a learning and development perspective. The Institute for Evaluation of Labour Market and Education Policy, IFAU, states that there is a lack of credible and empirical evidence on how increased use of digital technology in preschool affects students' knowledge development.

Against this background, the government has tasked Skolverket to propose changes to the preschool curriculum and remove the requirement that digital learning tools shall be used in preschool. Skolverket shall also propose changes that the education shall primarily be screen-free and that when digital learning tools are used, these pedagogical methods shall be scientifically documented and evidence-based. Preschools also receive a share of the targeted government grant to be able to purchase non-fiction and fiction for the school.

Mr. Speaker! Preschool also has a very important function for children to be able to participate in and see something other than what exists within the four walls of the apartment or house where they live. They can get other friends and other perspectives. Preschool implies a change of environment that should not be underestimated. This is particularly important for children and young people who are newly arrived and have not lived in Sweden for very long.

In Sweden, there are today children who are excluded and controlled through, for example, honor culture. The possibility of attending preschool means that they can break away from the context they find themselves in and that they can broaden their horizons and be exposed to other perspectives. These are incredibly important processes, especially for children, and here the preschool plays a key role.

The vast majority of children in Sweden attend preschool. We should be proud of that, as it serves our country well. From an international perspective, Sweden is an example here. But among children with foreign-born parents, children in vulnerable areas, and newly arrived children, the proportion of children who attend preschool is considerably lower. Therefore, the Riksdag made a decision during the previous parliamentary session to amend the legislation and the regulations so that the municipalities now have a much clearer obligation to, through outreach activities, find the three-year-olds who are not enrolled in preschool in order to inform the parents about the importance of letting the children attend preschool. Many parents may not know how the Swedish welfare system works or may feel anxiety as newcomers to Sweden. There is, therefore, an important information task for our municipalities.

Mr. Speaker! When it comes to knowledge and knowledge development, children from the age of three up to primary school are extremely receptive to knowledge. The opportunity to attend a high-quality preschool, with qualified preschool teachers, versatile teaching mixed with pedagogy, play, plenty of outdoor time, and so on, therefore provides an enormous leverage for learning. Therefore, we must focus on further strengthening the Swedish preschool. Not least, it is of course very important to get more qualified preschool teachers.

I vote in favor of the committee's proposal.

(Applause)

The speech at riksdagen.se, in Swedish (opens in a new tab)

Anna Lasses (C)

Mr. Speaker! I intended to speak about this with screens. I agree that it is a major problem that many children sit in front of screens for very long periods. I believe that the vast majority of Swedish parents agree with that. But at the same time, screens have a great significance, not least for children with special needs.

I visited a preschool in Sollentuna where they are actively working with digitalization in a good, pedagogical way. They have had children who previously could not communicate be part of the group in a completely different way. Here, they have truly used screens in a pedagogical way.

If one goes in and regulates this too much, I am worried that preschools will become afraid to use this where it is really needed. How does Fredrik Malm view this?

The speech at riksdagen.se, in Swedish (opens in a new tab)

Fredrik Malm (L)

Mr. Speaker! What Anna Lasses describes is something very important. In cases where digital tools can really make a very big difference - it could be about children who have a disability or something else - one should, of course, be able to use digital aids.

As I described in my speech earlier, the assignment that the government has given to Skolverket means that the requirement that digital learning tools must be present in preschool shall be removed – one shall therefore have no obligation to use these tools. The assignment also means to propose changes so that the stay in preschool shall primarily be screen-free.

This means that one can, of course, use digital aids in preschool in the future, if it is scientifically and empirically proven that they work. In the cases that Member Lasses brings up here, they should be. If they are, they should be able to be used; I see that as a given. I do not believe that we actually have any major differences of opinion on that question.

The speech at riksdagen.se, in Swedish (opens in a new tab)

Anna Lasses (C)

Mr. Speaker! That sounds good, but I am still worried. It is said that the requirement for digitalization shall be removed – fine, absolutely! – and then there are strong restrictions. The risk is that a lot of principals will choose to not purchase digital tools at all, simply because they can save money on it. In that case, it will be harder to use digital tools where it is relevant. Children with special needs are one thing, but it can also be used as a teaching aid when you are out in nature, to be able to look up flowers and so on. It is used in a very pedagogical and good way in the vast majority of preschools. This that children would sit in front of screens in preschools, I actually have not seen when I have been out in the operations, but it is precisely from a pedagogical perspective that this has been used.

My concern regarding the risk remains. We can also see that countries such as Singapore and Estonia, which rank at the top in the PISA measurements, use digital tools quite frequently in teaching.

Is it really not a risk? Will the government really ensure that we do not go backwards in the digital development in our eagerness to remove the screens from the preschool?

The speech at riksdagen.se, in Swedish (opens in a new tab)

Fredrik Malm (L)

Mr. Speaker! I note that the Centre Party first comments on the government's digitalization policy with the expression "fine, absolutely!". After that, it appears as if the Centre Party is in some kind of symbiosis with a number of tech operators and producers. They are there all the time and fishing: Is this really so good?

I believe that the Center Party lives on a bit in the debate we had in Sweden when we saw this as the height of modernity and were to take pioneering steps into the new era. However, a number of years ago, people began to listen a bit more to what the brain researchers, the pediatricians, and others said. I believe that it has been very important for Sweden, because it has made that we now – I perceive – have a more balanced debate with more perspectives. We are not just going to rush into the future and throw out all books because we think it is unmodern, but we now understand the importance of having paper and pen and that one cracks the reading code in a better way with analog methods than with digital ones.

When it concerns children who have very large functional disabilities and, for example, have a right to assistance, that is means-tested so that they shall receive special support. That we are now making changes in the digitalization strategies shall, of course, not come at the expense of the children who need it the most.

The speech at riksdagen.se, in Swedish (opens in a new tab)

Rose-Marie Carlsson (S)

Mr. Speaker! Today we are to consider one of many reports within the Education Committee's area of responsibility. It concerns preschool, which is the first step in the educational chain.

Preschool lays the foundation for lifelong learning and is an obvious part of the school system. Every day, more than half a million children go to preschool - a preschool that is built on knowledge, care, and learning; a preschool that meets the children where they are and lets the children grow from their own circumstances; a preschool that meets the children with competent and educated staff.

Much has happened during the more than 50 years that have passed since the preschool investigation was presented, and preschool has undergone major changes with an emphasis on expansion and accessibility. It also spans many policy areas: social policy, labor market policy, equality policy and, not to be forgotten, education policy.

Preschool as it looks today is relatively new. In recent years, preschool has been influenced by many different factors. The Convention on the Rights of the Child has become Swedish law, and we have had a pandemic that showed increased risks regarding both the staff's health and the children's learning. More children participate in preschool, which is positive. It is also important that there is preschool at times when parents work, so-called OB-preschools. At the same time, the stay times are significantly longer than they have been previously. Preschool's language development mission, both regarding Swedish and other mother tongues, has become more complex. Furthermore, more and more preschools are operated in corporate form.

Mr. Speaker! Against this background, we see a great need for a preschool commission. We have also been approached by researchers regarding this. Such a commission should be tasked with conducting a current situation analysis of what the preschool looks like and what conditions the preschool has today based on the requirements that are set, as well as developing a proposal aimed at increasing quality and equality in the preschool.

It is appropriate that representatives from both research and the profession are included in the commission. I also think it is obvious that Sveriges Lärare and Kommunal, which represent the largest workgroups in preschool, are included. It is also good if a political reference group can be linked to the commission.

In order to counter segregation and to ensure that the start of school is as good as possible for all children, the preschool's language development work must be strengthened, and especially in preschools in vulnerable areas. All children should be given good conditions to succeed in school, but we still see that children are given unequal conditions already from the start of school. Lack of knowledge in the Swedish language hinders learning and understanding even in other subjects.

We often talk about early interventions, but what do we mean by that? Most often it is from preschool and upwards. But at the same time, we know that investments very early, in this case already in preschool, have a greater effect than later investments. Heckman's curve shows the importance of investments at the beginning and how it all levels out as the children get older.

That is why we have in our budget proposed funds, 150 million, for a special initiative on language development and high quality at the 200 preschools that need it most. We have also proposed 80 million kronor to introduce language requirements and to carry out a language boost for pedagogical staff in preschools. It is an initiative corresponding to an additional 220 million kronor, in addition to the money that the government has provided.

The size of the children's groups must continue to decrease, and it must be more attractive to work in preschool. It is crucial that we can recruit and retain qualified staff and that there is an equal quality between preschools across the entire country. The latter is, not least, about continuing to invest in preschools in socioeconomically disadvantaged areas, as I said earlier.

When targets for the size of children's groups were reintroduced by the previous government, a targeted state grant was also introduced, which was later changed to a state grant for quality-enhancing measures. Even though the grant has been increased, it has been eroded by inflation. The state grant can be used to reduce the size of the children's groups but also for competence development for the staff who work closely with the children at the preschools.

The Education Act emphasizes the importance of preschool teachers, and the curriculum emphasizes the collective competence of the work team, of which childcare workers constitute a large part. We also know that many lack relevant education. Therefore, in the same way as with the elderly care's elderly care lift, we want to introduce a preschool lift.

As we have known from before, preschool played an important role during the pandemic. Even though we do not have a pandemic right now, we live in a restless world, which also affects preschool. We talk a lot about civil preparedness, and then we cannot forget that preschool will have a great significance, both for children and adults and for society at large.

Mr. Speaker! We stand behind all our motions, but to save time, I move for approval only of reservation 1, which concerns the preschool's conditions and the appointment of a preschool commission, and reservation 11, which concerns that there should be access to OB-preschools for those who need it.

(Applause)

The speech at riksdagen.se, in Swedish (opens in a new tab)

Noria Manouchi (M)

Mr. Speaker! Swedish preschool has a very important role in our society. Not only is it to stimulate children's learning and development; it must also offer a safe care.

Preschool shall be based on the child's needs and be designed so that care, development, and learning form a whole. The activities shall promote versatile contacts and social community and prepare the children for continued education. Preschool is a fundamental part of our welfare and an investment in our nation's future.

Previously, it was not everyone who utilized the right to preschool, but today we can state that an absolute majority of children of preschool age attend preschool or pedagogical activities. A couple of years ago, participation was between 84 and 99 percent, depending on which municipality it was. Across the entire country, preschool teachers, childcare workers, and other staff struggle to offer a truly good operation, and they deserve praise for it.

However, there lies an enormous responsibility on us decision-makers, both at the national level and at the municipal level, to ensure that the right legislation and the right conditions are in place.

Of all the full-time employees in preschool in 2022, just over 40 percent had a preschool teacher degree, and 17 percent had a secondary education for working with children. The Government has therefore, through regulatory letters, prioritized measures to strengthen competence development for, among others, preschool teachers and other pedagogical staff. This can involve strengthened competence with a focus on practical methodology and young children's learning. It can also involve promoting the quality of teaching in languages and in reading, writing, and mathematics development.

The government also ensures that employees within preschool activities are given the opportunity to improve their knowledge of the Swedish language when needed.

Mr. Speaker! If we are to address the low qualification level among employees within preschool activities, more people must be given the opportunity to train as preschool teachers. With a new state grant that took effect last year, there are now two options for obtaining a relevant education while simultaneously continuing one's employment. Furthermore, we ensure that preschools with particularly difficult conditions have priority for the new state grant.

Mr. Speaker! We need to do more to strengthen our preschool staff so that they are equipped to prepare our children for the rest of their school years. But we also need to ensure that they are ready to constitute what is part of many children's first encounter with what is our common Swedish society. The preschool staff should feel secure that it is Swedish values and norms that permeate the operations, and the staff should receive support from both the preschool management and politics when these are challenged by children, parents, or colleagues. Unfortunately, that is not the case across our entire country today.

Mr. Speaker! The latest scandal report from Malmö reveals a terrifying situation where children are harmed in the name of honor. Of the municipality's 195 preschools, 3 have been reviewed, and the Social Democratic government refuses to inspect the remaining 192 preschools.

In view of this, I would like to remind that every year hundreds of Swedish children are taken out of the country. They disappear during the summer holidays. They are taken out of our country by their families and relatives to be radicalized, subjected to female genital mutilation, or married off. This has been ongoing for decades. At the national level, several reforms have been implemented; for example, municipalities have been given the right to issue travel bans when there is suspicion that children will be taken out of the country for these purposes. However, this requires that someone alerts the municipality to this.

Punishments have been tightened for honor-related crimes, and Skolverket has received more resources to strengthen schools and preschools in their systematic work against honor-related violence and oppression. This is particularly important because there are municipalities that do not prioritize this. Another important part in pushing back honor-related oppression is to ensure that the work being carried out actually works. Therefore, Skolinspektionen has been tasked with auditing schools' work in preventing and addressing honor-related violence and oppression. Not least the reports from the past week show how important this is.

I move for the rejection of the motions and for the approval of the committee's proposal in the report.

(Applause)

In this speech, Magnus Resare (M) agreed.

The speech at riksdagen.se, in Swedish (opens in a new tab)

Anders Alftberg (SD)

Mr. Speaker! I would like to begin by moving for approval of reservation 4.

With the centenary of Swedish democracy still fresh in our minds, we can state that our country has changed enormously – from an agrarian society to an industrial society to a knowledge society. But it has also certainly been the children's century. We moved from child abuse and child labor to seeing our children as more full-fledged human beings with specific needs.

At the turn of the last century, as industrial society emerged, more and more of our families moved into the cities, and children became less profitable in the eyes of adults. Instead, they were sometimes seen as little savages roaming the streets, and they were even perceived by the middle and upper classes as a direct threat to the future if no one took care of them. It was then that the philanthropists established their institutions. We received, among other things, the small children's schools. The children were taught in Christianity, reading, writing, arithmetic, and gymnastics. However, the focus was on discipline and upbringing. During this time, we also received nurseries and kindergartens with varying pedagogical tools.

During the 1960s, however, pedagogy changed and became more inspired by Fröbel, who had emphasized the importance of play and the significance of self-activity. School-like teaching was toned down, and play was given more space.

But it was perhaps first in the 1970s and 1980s that we got the preschool we know today. The large expansion of preschool activities made it possible, especially for women, to enter the labor market, become independent individuals and more economically independent. We have every reason to feel pride in the Swedish preschool.

Mr. Speaker! I am, however, concerned. The situation in our preschools across the country is alarming with growing child groups and difficulties in recruiting qualified staff. This has resulted in us failing to provide our children with the best possible care, safety, and stimulation for their learning and development.

It is the Sverigedemokraternas fundamental view that preschool should primarily be for those children whose parents work or study. Sweden's municipalities face great challenges and difficulties in being able to secure and safeguard the basic parts of our welfare state and our preschool in the long run.

We therefore need to revise the parts of the Education Act that stipulate that the municipalities shall offer childcare for at least three hours per day or fifteen hours per week to children whose parents are unemployed or on parental leave. Sverigedemokraterna see it as necessary to lower this requirement on our municipalities to two hours per day or ten hours per week. In this way, we give our municipalities better opportunities and conditions to secure the care and safety for the children who truly need to be in preschool.

I can understand that this proposal causes some irritation among those politicians who see the preschool as the perfect place to nurture and indoctrinate children according to their political preferences. We Sverigedemokrater believe that the preschool should neither nor can replace the family. Parents best nurture their own children in almost all cases.

Mr. Speaker! In order not to disappoint the Green Party, the Left Party, and the Social Democrats, I must, of course, once again raise the issue of gender pedagogy in preschools. Previous debates in this chamber have clearly shown that we stand far apart from each other, and we will certainly continue to do so today as well.

We view with concern how mental ill-health among children and young people is increasing ever more. The diagnosis gender dysphoria has increased by more than 2,300 percent over a ten-year period. It is very worrying that different types of coercive methods, for example counter-steering, are used extensively precisely within gender pedagogy in some of our preschools. It is considered that children live under the coercion that gender roles have created and that one therefore has the right to force children to play in a certain way, with other toys and so on.

We can ask ourselves about the adult who is in a superior position of power, namely creates a gender confusion in children who are subjected to the measure. The government should therefore consider investigating how gender pedagogy is conducted in preschool and whether there are links to the mental ill-health of children.

Mr. Speaker! Sweden faces major societal challenges, and many of them are directly linked to increased segregation. Here, the preschool obviously has an important role to play.

Mastering the Swedish language is the single most important factor for successful integration. Children who cannot handle the Swedish language when they leave preschool and take the step up into primary school will face great difficulties in the future. It is therefore alarming that we are repeatedly met with reports that the preschool staff's knowledge of Swedish in some parts of the country is so substandard that the children's language development suffers.

The Sweden Democrats have for many years, with a number of different proposals, driven the issue of raising the linguistic competence of our preschool staff. With the now added regulatory letters, the Swedish National Agency for Education shall provide measures aimed at improving knowledge of the Swedish language among employees within welfare and preschool. Here, the Swedish National Agency for Education shall prioritize measures that can be implemented quickly and strive to spread the measures across the entire country. The Swedish National Agency for Education will keep the Ministry of Education informed about the work on an ongoing basis. The assignment will be final-reported in the autumn, on 16 October 2024. We Sweden Democrats will follow the issue with great interest.

In conclusion, I want to highlight the question of the veil's presence or absence in Swedish preschools. Let it be clear and distinct that we Sverigedemokrater consider that a total ban on this woman-humiliating and woman-oppressing garment should be introduced in our preschools. We must also stand up for Muslim girls' rights to be free from religiously motivated gender oppression, sexualization of children's bodies, and honor norms.

During the last few weeks, as pointed out by previous speakers, the local press in Malmö has highlighted how extensive the honor oppression is in precisely their preschools in particularly vulnerable areas. Children of different genders are not allowed to play with each other. Girls are not allowed to wear short sleeves or shorts because they are not allowed to show their body parts, despite the summer heat that was present. Young boys say that they decide over female staff and do not need to listen to them because they are women. Girls are forced by parents, and in some cases also by staff who themselves live under some form of honor norm, to wear a veil.

The preschool administration's work in Malmö against honor norms in preschool was completely dismantled by Malmö city's own city audit. The staff do not dare, or do not want to, report to social services when children are subjected to honor oppression by their parents. From January to October last year, only a single report was made among 20,000 Malmö children in preschool. Not even cases of female genital mutilation of young girls did certain governing Social Democratic politicians want to see as honor oppression, but only as assault.

What is now happening on a broad front in Malmö is also happening all around Sweden. I am speaking of the widespread honor oppression, but also of the naivety and reluctance of some political representatives to tackle the problems. We must maintain a straight and clear line in Sweden that all forms of honor oppression shall be combated. The preschool must never become a place where honor oppression is upheld.

Mr. Speaker! A great responsibility rests on us politicians. Our preschool shall provide the children with the best care and security - but also the opportunity to become free individuals regardless of whether they are boys or girls.

(Applause)

In this speech, Patrick Reslow (SD) agreed.

The speech at riksdagen.se, in Swedish (opens in a new tab)

Mathias Bengtsson (KD)

Mr. Speaker! For the Christian Democrats, preschool and childcare is primarily about giving children a secure start in life. The love, affirmation, and care we give them as small children, both in the homes and through childcare and preschool, we receive back in the form of secure and responsible young people and adults.

For us Christian Democrats, it is a self-evident matter that every parent should be able to choose childcare themselves. Every child is unique, and therefore it is the parents who, in most cases, can best judge what their children thrive on. Regardless of whether the parents choose a municipal or independent preschool or pedagogical care - or if they, for that matter, choose neither of those but choose to stay home with their children - it is a freedom they should have. Therefore, it is important that in every municipality there is a broad palette of both municipal and private alternatives, as well as different pedagogical orientations, precisely for the sake of the parents' freedom of choice and for the children's sake.

To this diversity contributes, not least, the pedagogical care of family daycare, which I would like to emphasize a little extra. Family daycare is characterized by small-scale operations, a home-like proximity, and a high continuity among the staff, which often constitutes a good complement to the excessively large groups of children in the municipal preschool.

Unfortunately, there are today some signals that pedagogical care is being threatened in certain municipalities, where they are trying to reduce diversity and freedom of choice for families. According to the Education Act and the Swedish National Agency for Education's general advice, a municipality today cannot simply waive providing pedagogical care; rather, the municipality must take reasonable account of the parents' wishes. However, it seems to be a bit hit and miss regarding how that is followed in some municipalities. Therefore, I may think—and this is something the Kristdemokraterna have pushed—that the provision should be tightened so that the municipalities shall be obliged to provide pedagogical care.

It is also deeply concerning that certain municipalities charge high fees just for private individuals to have an application to start pedagogical activities reviewed, Mr. Speaker. Municipalities certainly have every right to do so, but it was never the intention that the application fee should be used as a means to reduce freedom of choice. That was never the intention of the law.

Mr. Speaker! A key in childcare is time for the children. Time for the children gives safer children, and safe children are what, in the long run, provide a Sweden where fewer children, youth, and adults suffer. The children's groups need therefore, regardless of the form of childcare, to be small. Large children's groups can, in fact, expose children to a stress that can have serious consequences for the children's development. In addition to impaired attachment, the stress risks leading, among other things, to concentration difficulties and impaired learning ability.

If a children's group becomes too large, the positive effects of being in a group risk being replaced by the opposite. Relationships can become difficult for children to oversee, which creates a sense of anonymity and insecurity - something which in turn can lead to aggressive behavior or other manifestations such as fatigue, sadness, and listlessness.

Skolverket has today guidelines that there should be six to twelve children per toddler group for children aged one to three years, but there are few preschool teachers working in a toddler group who are within these guidelines. It is therefore completely obvious that the work to reduce the large children's groups in Sweden needs to continue. Parents should be able to feel secure that there is time and an embrace to curl up in for their two-year-old. The preschool staff should be able to feel secure that they have good conditions to perform their fantastic work.

Mr. Speaker! The Government is also carrying out targeted work to reduce screens in schools and preschools. Screens cause children to become more sedentary, find it harder to develop relationships, engage less in free play, and have poorer language development and concentration skills. Despite this, tablets are introduced from a very early age in many preschools.

This screen experiment must be stopped. The routine use of tablets in preschool must be abolished; it is not the preschool's task to provide two-year-olds with digital competence. Therefore, this government will ensure that the screen fever is broken and the requirement for digital tools in preschool is removed.

Mr. Speaker! To wrap up: the Christian Democrats' childcare policy aims for more children to be seen and affirmed, as well as to be able to feel safe in preschool. It lays a foundation that reduces the risk of mental ill-health later in life. Secure children are what seriously lay the foundation for a secure society and a more secure Sweden.

I vote in favor of the committee's proposal in the report.

(Applause)

The speech at riksdagen.se, in Swedish (opens in a new tab)

Daniel Riazat (V)

Mr. Speaker! I want to begin my speech by saying that we should be incredibly happy that we can stand here today and talk about the fantastic preschool activities we have in Sweden. We should be happy that our children have the opportunity to attend such a fantastic preschool activity. That is not how it looks in large parts of the world; if we, for example, look at the children in Gaza today, we see that they do not have the opportunity to attend preschool. Due to Israel's illegal invasion and attacks against civilians, they hardly have the opportunity to live.

Mr. Speaker! All children should be able to develop based on the best conditions and their own needs. A good preschool is at least as important for children's development as a good school. Now that we find ourselves in an economically turbulent time where we see how the municipalities are forced to cut resources for preschool and school, the government and the leadership of the Sverigedemokraterna choose to present a budget cut that only gives municipalities and regions a third of what they would need to even maintain today's levels of quality.

They also send forward representatives who are to lay out mists of fog in the form of invented facts about gender pedagogy and children with a foreign background. This is simply done to create conflicts that do not exist, for the purpose of shifting the focus of the debate from the important: that they are implementing a cutback budget and ensuring that the Swedish welfare and preschool are sold out so that a few private owners can enrich themselves.

For Vänsterpartiet, it is important to protect the children. The right to a good preschool for all children is a given. Good childcare is also a prerequisite for women and men to be able to work on equal terms. Here we must say that we have not been in agreement on this historically - at the time when the right spoke about women being in the kitchen, the Left, the Social Democrats and the Greens fought so that women would have the same rights as men.

Within the preschool, staff run a greater risk of suffering from stress-related illnesses compared to other occupational groups in the labor market. This risks affecting the children's development. Children have a right to a good preschool operation, and the staff have a right to a good working environment. Therefore, from the Left Party's side, we want to see stricter regulation of the quality in the preschool. To counteract ill-considered cuts, more money to the municipalities is also proposed in the Left Party's budget motion.

Many employees within the preschool sector are not doing well, and many testify to a pressured situation. Large groups of children and too few colleagues lead to a stressed work environment.

The size of the children's groups is one of the factors that affects both children and staff. Skolverket has guidelines for group size based on collective international and national research. This research shows several advantages of smaller groups, including that it leads to a better environment with lower noise levels and that it benefits children's learning.

We from Vänsterpartiet consider these guidelines to be good, but since there is no regulation—that is to say laws—for how large the children's groups may be, the numbers are exceeded in many places. Unfortunately, the development is heading in the wrong direction.

In Norway, the same development was seen, and in 2018 they chose to legislate on the size of children's groups. This is the path that Vänsterpartiet wants to take. In Norway, it can be seen that the laws have had a desirable effect and that the staff density has increased. In order for Sweden to rectify the staffing in preschools and give all children a good start in life, Vänsterpartiet wants Sweden to follow Norway's example. Vänsterpartiet therefore believes that the government should return with proposals on regulation regarding the size of children's groups in relation to the number of educators. Therefore, I move for approval of Vänsterpartiet's reservation 6.

Mr. Speaker! In recent years, preschool has been affected by a number of things. The Convention on the Rights of the Child has become Swedish law, and we have also gone through a terrible pandemic. This has shown us what it means and how important it is that we have both a preschool activity and childcare that works for everyone and a flexible childcare that takes into account that people have different working hours. During the pandemic, we could see how much childcare at inconvenient working hours meant for the children concerned in the municipalities where this existed and how much it meant for maintaining our welfare, including within healthcare.

Overall, the problems we see today in the Swedish preschool system mean that a preschool commission needs to be appointed. Such a commission should be tasked with conducting a current situation analysis and producing proposals with the aim of increasing the quality and equality in the preschool in the future. As I recall, bourgeois parties such as the Moderaterna have previously been in favor of a preschool commission and have themselves proposed this, but for some strange reason, they now choose not to back the proposal for a preschool commission.

Trade union organizations such as Kommunal and Sveriges Lärare are examples of parties that think it is particularly important to involve the preschool staff in such an investigation. We also think this is incredibly important. A political reference group should also be linked to this commission.

Mr. Speaker! The proportion of preschools run by profit-seeking companies is increasing, and several large corporations are beginning to enter what is unfortunately called the Swedish preschool market. The risk with this, or rather something we know for certain, is that the unserious actors will increase in number and that the pursuit of profit will be prioritized over the children's right to a good preschool. We have seen the terrible consequences of this in primary school and upper secondary school, and we see how it is having increasingly negative consequences for the Swedish preschool. It is time to put a stop to this. Therefore, Vänsterpartiet believes that a profit ban should be introduced and that limited companies should not be allowed to operate preschool activities.

As I mentioned earlier, many people have inconvenient working hours and work evenings, weekends, and nights. Today, parents do not have any automatic right to childcare during these times - instead, it is up to each municipality to decide whether it should be offered. From the Left Party's side, for the reason I stated earlier, we believe that it is important to regulate by law that all municipalities shall have preschool activities during inconvenient working hours. We believe that the government should investigate the possibility of such legislation.

Mr. Speaker! I want to conclude by saying that the most important issue, besides the children's groups, is to remove the market's interests from the Swedish preschool and to ensure that the purpose of the preschool, which is for the children, is fulfilled. This cannot be done when limited companies are represented in the Swedish Riksdag and in this government. Therefore, we need to both get the limited companies out of the Swedish preschool and get this government out of Rosenbad.

The speech at riksdagen.se, in Swedish (opens in a new tab)

Anna Lasses (C)

Mr. Speaker! Quite often I get the feeling that the conditions we give our preschool teachers roughly correspond to us first educating a person to be a gardener and then placing the person in the middle of the desert, miles from the nearest oasis, with a bucket of water and a bag of seeds and saying: Please - your mission is to grow a garden!

The most surprising thing is that a fairly large part actually succeed. This is of course good for the children who end up with gardeners with superhero powers, but it is not reasonable and definitely not sustainable.

The consequences of this we see all too often with children older in age who do not manage school, become homebodies and end up in exclusion. It begins in preschool. It is there that the opportunities are greatest to lay the foundation for the individual. It is there we have the opportunity to discover who needs support when the home is not functioning. It is there we have the opportunity to give children the language needed to enter the community. It is there that the children come full of energy and a desire to learn. It is in preschool that we can, among other things, build away the exclusion.

It is therefore extra serious that we can observe that the employees' education level is lower and that many of the staff lack sufficient knowledge of Swedish in the areas where the most vulnerable children live. It is also there that the children's absence is highest, which makes it more difficult to provide the children with the education they are entitled to.

In the debate, it is sometimes heard that preschool is not for the employees but primarily for the parents. Let us throw this claim in the trash once and for all! Preschool is first and foremost for the children. It is they who are to receive an education. The care aspect is important. It is a prerequisite for parents to be able to work, but the main focus must not lie there. Hardly anyone says that the lower grades of school, for children between seven and nine years old, are for the parents. Let us see preschool for what it is: education for our youngest citizens.

In order for our children to receive the education they are entitled to, the educators in preschools must be given the right conditions to do their jobs. Even superheroes can become burnt out; we know that. We know that it requires trained staff, but the proportion of employees who are qualified preschool teachers varies greatly across the country and between employers - from 13 to 75 percent. Approximately one-third - slightly depending on how one counts - of the preschool teachers and childcare workers still lack the education that should be required.

The government certainly speaks of enabling further education, but the resources offered are far too small. Furthermore, with the targeted grants that are often provided, it almost requires a master's in administration for principals and municipalities to apply for the grants.

The shortage of qualified preschool teachers and childcare workers is a known fact. Furthermore, there is a rather strange view on what is required to call oneself a childcare worker. Sometimes the title is used for short training programs for labor market purposes, which results in relatively inexperienced staff with a lack of knowledge about what the work actually entails being employed in our preschools. The Center Party therefore demands an upgrade of the childcare worker profession with a standardization of the basic education for childcare workers, so that it becomes clear what will actually be required for one to be allowed to use that title.

The most important and fundamental thing in children's education is language. It should therefore be a matter of course that every single person working with children in preschool has sufficient knowledge in the language required to access society. This is also the reason why we in Centerpartiet demand sufficient knowledge in Swedish from those who work with children in preschool and pedagogical care.

I will return to our gardeners with superpowers. Proper education and knowledge in Swedish is a good start. But it is not enough. Staffing density has for a long time been the absolute biggest challenge for many principals. And it costs money. It is money that we as those in power at all levels simply must ensure is there. One can streamline in many different ways. But staffing density costs, because the number of children is what it is.

Isn't it a bit strange that we have a guideline saying that we should have 6-12 children in groups for children between one and two years old, and then a guideline saying that we should have 9-15 children in groups for children between three and five years old? Then, when you look at how it actually looks, the average is above the guideline for both of these groups. It might have been okay if the staffing density had compensated for that. But it doesn't. It stands at an average of 5.1. If we had followed the guidelines that I have just spoken about, the figure would have been below 4.

What does 5.1 children per staff member in the operations actually mean? The one who goes out into the operations quickly discovers that it all too often means that one tries to prioritize the toddler groups and keep them down so that there are approximately 12-14 children with three staff members. But the groups for three- to five-year-olds often grow into slightly larger groups of sometimes 22-24 children, still with three staff members. This means that in reality, we have a staffing density of 7-8 children per staff member.

How many of you in here believe that it is sustainable to be responsible for 7-8 three- to five-year-olds for a longer period, and that all these children receive the attention and support they need and the education they are entitled to?

Now the number of children is temporarily decreasing. Then one would have had the opportunity to "automatically" increase the staffing density by letting the staff remain even though the number of children decreases. Instead, we see that there are closures and mergers of preschools.

These are some of the reasons why the Center Party invests significantly more than the government in children's education. In addition to what the government invests, we are investing 5 billion, calculated precisely. That is for the entire school, it should be added, from preschool up to upper primary school. But it is significantly more than zero.

Preschool

Furthermore: What is the government actually doing? It is very quiet about preschool in the debate, except for the screens that we have talked about. They are purchasing books. That is of course very important. But given what I am highlighting now, it is hardly books that are the big solution to the preschool's major challenges.

The bottom line is that we want the government to appoint an inquiry into preschool with the mandate to conduct a fundamental review of the actual conditions for a sustainable and equal preschool based on the Education Act and the curriculum. The inquiry needs to look at, among other things, the size of children's groups, staffing density, resource allocation, children in need of special support, as well as the conditions for the learning of multilingual children.

We do not consider the investigation that was conducted a few years ago to be sufficient, not least because it did not properly review the resource allocation. We also do not believe that one should wait for the National Audit Office's review of the preschool's quality, as it is hardly rocket science what it will point in which direction.

The investigation is needed now. While waiting for it, significant resources are needed that are not earmarked for certain specific directions, such as books, but where municipalities and school providers can allocate the money where it is best needed in their specific preschools. In nine out of ten cases, it will be more staff and further education.

Preschool

With this, I say thank you. I move for the approval of our reservation number 2 in the report.

The deliberation was hereby concluded.

(Decisions were made under § 16.)

The speech at riksdagen.se, in Swedish (opens in a new tab)