(cont. from § 13) Better adapted teaching time in primary school, special school, and the Sámi school (cont. UbU5)
Translated from Swedish by AI; the translation may contain errors. The Swedish text is the original.
Summary AI, written in advance
The debate concerns removing the remaining 177 hours for students' choices in primary school, special school, and the Sámi school to free up time for core subjects such as mathematics and reading 1. SD motions for approval and argues that the school's results have deteriorated due to lack of clarity and disorder 1. S argues that the change threatens music profiles and the position of culture and wants a follow-up 2 3. MP stands behind the change but wants an investigation to strengthen the cultural mandate and preserve student influence 4. M, C and KD support the proposal as the teaching time in social and nature-oriented subjects is insufficient 5 6 7. V stands behind the reservation from S, V and MP 8.
Written by AI in advance and may contain errors. The numbers lead to the speech a statement builds on; check against the text below.
Jörgen Grubb (SD)
Madam Speaker! I begin by moving to approve the committee's proposal in the report.
The proposal concerns removing the few hours that currently remain of the student's choice in primary school, special school, and the Sámi school. The student's choice is today 177 hours in total, which amounts to approximately 30 minutes per week. This should not be confused with the school's choice, which continues to remain to provide an opportunity for schools to create a specific profiling towards a certain subject. The school can also add hours.
We want to redistribute the time for the students' choice to free up teaching time for subjects that we see need more teaching time. It cannot have escaped anyone that the Swedish school's downward trend has continued, which was shown with great clarity when the PISA study from 2022 was recently reported. Here, students' knowledge in mathematics, reading comprehension, and science, which are important core subjects, are measured. This robust study, which is conducted on students in grade 8, shows that 25 percent of the students do not master the basics in math and reading. If someone 20-30 years ago had said that this would happen, that person would most likely have been accused of being a liar, charlatan, or mythomaniac. But now we stand here with the results in hand, and something must be done.
The causes of today's large discrepancy in school results between different student groups and a generally much poorer result are disorder in schools and lack of clarity regarding which skills are to be taught and learned. We must, of course, curb this by starting an improvement process in many areas. The PISA survey shows this with great clarity. Sweden is not alone in this. Germany also struggles with these problems, and the results in the parallel societies are extremely poor.
In the consideration of 177 hours of the student's time in primary school, we have weighed the pros and cons for this time. The result of this leans very strongly in the direction that these hours should be spent on reinforcing the important core subjects where we today see a weakness. I have already mentioned math and reading, but it can also be other subjects where it is a problem to get everything in.
This does not mean that we do not see sports and aesthetic subjects as important. They are also continued, and these subjects remain in the general timetable. That shall not be changed. Furthermore, there is room for the primary school principals to go beyond the minimum guaranteed teaching time and thereby provide students with more instruction in a profile subject.
Furthermore, I recommend that one, in one's spare time, engages in any or all of the fantastic non-profit associations that exist within sports, movement, and aesthetic activities which make Sweden quite unique. I think this is super great, and I believe most agree with me.
Madam Speaker! During the previous parliamentary term, some hours were taken away from the students' choice. At that time, we were all in agreement, which was good. This was preceded by a review by Skolverket which showed that the quality of the students' choice was very varied and that there were doubts regarding how effectively the time for this was used. To stand behind the proposal to redistribute the remaining hours of the students' choice is self-evident for us. To claim that it saves the Swedish school would be an exaggeration, but it is a small step on the way towards improving things for most students, which makes the proposal quite important.
Linus Sköld (S)
Madam Speaker! I thank Jörgen Grubb for the speech.
A number of referral bodies, primarily within the music and cultural life, have expressed great concerns regarding this change. One concern concerns the ongoing death of music profiles, which I mentioned in my speech. A number of music profile classes have already been abolished, and others are about to be abolished. Another concerns a general weakening of the position of culture and the practical-aesthetic subjects in school.
We have urged the government to conduct a follow-up on whether these consequences continue. If the death of the music profile is linked to the fact that the government has signaled this change and that the principals are planning for a rapid implementation, measures may need to be taken if it is desired that music profiling should remain.
Does Grubb think that music profiles should be abolished and the school's cultural mission weakened? Why else does he not want to see a follow-up of the change?
Jörgen Grubb (SD)
Madam Speaker! My simple answer to the question is: No, I do not think at all that they need to be abolished. There are several possibilities here. The school's choice remains. It does not provide that much time, but a little. Above all, the principals can add extra teaching time, which they often already do in these schools. 30 minutes per week does not constitute the entire profile time, so I do not believe that these minutes are entirely decisive. The principals can therefore choose to keep the music profile classes.
Linus Sköld (S)
Madam Speaker! Jörgen Grubb completely dismisses the objections of the referral bodies, for example, the Royal College of Music. He also does not think it is worth following up on whether the closure and upcoming closure of over 15 music profile classes around the whole country has anything to do with the announced change. Is that how I should understand Jörgen Grubb's answer to my question when he says that what remains after the change is sufficient for profiling to be able to continue? There are also sports profiles. Nothing suggests that they would meet a different fate than the music profiles.
We are not against the change as it is proposed, but we think that one should take care of the consequences. The government has treated this somewhat neglectfully. Just as Jörgen Grubb has noted, the school's options remain and that one can increase the teaching time. That possibility exists now too, and yet we see these referral statements and these consequences for the music profiles.
Why does Jörgen Grubb not want to follow up on what the consequences of this change will be and take care of those consequences if he now thinks that music profiles are something that should also exist in the future?
Jörgen Grubb (SD)
Madam Speaker! I still believe that music profiles should remain. I have good experience of it myself because one of my daughters attended such a school during primary school, and it was very pleasant.
But they spent more than half an hour on this a week. They used more than that half hour that you and we others agreed to remove. Now, we have therefore removed roughly one hour a week twice, and you complain and say that the last 30 minutes decide everything.
No, one spends many more hours than that on this. It is something that is added on top of the school's choices or that the principals themselves choose to have extended studies in at their schools. It is quite obvious that this will continue to work in the future as well. I do not believe that it depends on the last half hour that remains.
Now the member will not have the opportunity to answer my question, but I will ask it anyway: Let us say that we have just over 350 or 370 hours. We remove half, and it goes well. But when we then remove the remaining 177 hours, it does not go well. Is 177 hours the actual limit during a full school time in primary school? Is this the actual breaking point, or is it 120 hours or 190 hours? It would have been quite interesting to hear.
Based on the member's reasoning, it seems as if there is a breaking point right here. But that is not the case, because half an hour plus half an hour just becomes one hour; combined with the previous half hour, it becomes one hour, and you had no problems with the first half hour.
I see nothing strange in this. But it is clear that it lies in the nature of the matter that those who deal with this may want even more time.
This is what lies in one scale. In the other scale lies the catastrophic result of the Pisa investigation and that we must reinforce certain issues. Then one must make an active choice. We make this choice – the latter.
Camilla Hansén (MP)
Madam Speaker! Miljöpartiet supports this change of the student's choice and the timetable.
In addition to culture and sports, which have already been raised, I want to raise another aspect, namely student influence. I note that the argumentation regarding student influence is quite thin in the bill. Among the referral bodies, the student movement has even rejected the bill precisely because of the deficiencies in student influence in the development of the proposals.
It is important to understand how this threat to student influence is perceived by the students and by the student organizations, but not only by them. Örebro Municipality supports the proposal but points out in its referral response that it could lead to less student engagement and affect students' sense of influence. The National Union of Students expresses a concern over reduced student influence in practice and the risk of decreased motivation among students when the power over their own schooling is reduced.
I want to emphasize that students in Sweden shall be given influence over their education and be encouraged to take an active part in developing their education based on age and maturity. Successively, students shall be given greater influence over their education and the school's internal work.
The ability to work in democratic forms is something that one learns in practice, for example when the requirements for student influence in the school system are taken seriously in the school's everyday practical work. As more school subjects are now changed in scope and content, it is important that student influence gets its rightful place in the schools' development work as a whole.
Madam Speaker! With that, I move for approval of the reservation, which means partly that this reform shall be followed up regarding the position of culture and sports, and partly that an inquiry shall be appointed to strengthen the school's cultural mandate.
Noria Manouchi (M)
Madam Speaker! This bill concerns the redistribution of teaching time in primary school. Skolverket has stated that the teaching time in social studies and natural science subjects is insufficient to cover all the areas described in the central content of the curricula.
In Skolverket's review, it is also noted that there are 177 hours which are used in a qualitatively very varied way, and it is questioned whether the time is actually used effectively. The activities differ significantly between principals, but also between schools belonging to the same principalship.
At the same time, the SO and NO subjects are so neglected in terms of teaching time that under the previous government, it was considered to remove ancient Greece from history teaching. The assessment was, Madam Speaker, that Swedish students would not have time to be taught about the ideological-historical source of Western civilization. This is thus happening at the same time as we have 177 hours that need to be used in a higher-quality way than today.
Against that background, the government assesses that the time for the students' choice can be used better and therefore proposes a redistribution of this teaching time to subjects where more time may be needed to improve the students' learning, increase the equity in the education, and raise the students' knowledge results.
Madam Speaker! I share the government's assessment and therefore move for the approval of the bill.
Niels Paarup-Petersen (C)
Madam Speaker! We have already received an excellent explanation of the subject of waste management from my colleague Fredrik Malm. We have such one in our calendars as well, so I will say very briefly that from the Center Party's side, we support the government's bill.
I am going to be on parental leave after Christmas, and it will take some time until we see each other again. I will miss you, but I will also hope that you want to give me a small Christmas present. Can you not, during the coming half-year, solve what is in the cards today a bit faster and ensure that those students who are knocked out and do not have a chance to complete their education get better opportunities? Then I would be extra happy when I am now allowed to be at home with my little one.
With that, I wish you all and the entire office a Merry Christmas. We will see each other in a long while!
Mathias Bengtsson (KD)
Madam Speaker! I would like to make some additions to what has already been said. It has been reported on the "stuff-pushing" and Skolverket's somewhat less successful attempts to remove antiquity from the history subject. I would like to inform the Chamber that the memory-rich also remembers that references to the Bible in religious studies were also to be cleared in the same wave. Fortunately, students will also continue to learn both stories from the Bible and about antiquity.
I will tell a little anecdote about the students' choice from my own time in upper secondary school. We were a group that, for the students' choice, were to review films. To write reviews, one naturally needs to watch the films. Then it turned out that there was no grading teacher who assessed our work, so over time it became more and more film and less and less review.
Against the background of this somewhat anecdotal evidence, I believe that Skolverket is correct in that the students' choices are conducted with very varying quality and efficiency.
I wish to concur with the previous speaker's endorsement of the committee's proposal and thank the committee secretariat, the Speaker's presidency, and the members for this term. I wish everyone a Merry Christmas!
Daniel Riazat (V)
Madam Speaker! I also just wanted to say that Vänsterpartiet stands behind the reservation from S, V and MP in the report.
I would like to wish the Speaker and the Chancellery a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year. I would also like to wish Niels all the best. We have had perhaps most of the debates against each other here in the chamber and in the Education Committee. It has been very enjoyable.
Now that you are gone, we will absolutely make sure that everything gets sorted out - stay home extra with the child, so we will solve everything from here in the Riksdag!
The deliberation was hereby concluded.
Source: The Swedish Parliament. The speeches come from the open data of the Riksdag, translated into English by AI, which may contain errors.