(cont.) Response to interpellation 2023/24:376 on NPF students and suicidal tendencies
Translated from Swedish by AI; the translation may contain errors. The Swedish text is the original.
Summary AI, written in advance
The debate concerns the high suicide propensity among students with NPF and the lack of support in schools. V argues that the government's austerity budget means that schools lack resources for special education teachers, smaller teaching groups, and school social teams 1 2 3. V believes that the government deprioritizes these students and that the broken school system leads to exclusion 3. L argues that the idea of inclusion has led to exclusion and that the government is now investing in state grants for special education teachers, school social teams, and smaller teaching groups 4. L wants to introduce a national school funding norm to reduce differences between municipalities and increase state governance 5 6.
Written by AI in advance and may contain errors. The numbers lead to the speech a statement builds on; check against the text below.
Nadja Awad (V)
Mr. Speaker! I am pleased that the Minister for Education takes the overrepresentation of students with NPF among those prone to suicide in Sweden seriously. The high suicide propensity in this group is a testament to the fact that not only our healthcare system in Sweden but also the school system is not equitable.
The Minister mentions many important measures, such as that it is important that students receive support measures in a timely manner, that measures are implemented earlier than today, that schools get better conditions to meet students' needs for support measures and that schools can hire more staff such as special education teachers and enable more special small teaching groups, but also that a strong student health service with special educators and special education teachers is needed. It is also about investing in school social teams to address long-term school absence and follow up on how it goes for students with NPF in school.
These are important measures, but what is the government doing to enable the schools to carry out these measures in time? With the government's austerity budget for 2023 and now 2024, the schools in Sweden are not receiving sufficient resources to carry out the measures. Every third municipality ran a deficit in 2023, and 2024 is expected to be worse.
The government is not taking the funding responsibility for the municipalities that they have according to law. There will be no more special education teachers, smaller teaching groups, strengthened student health services or school social teams. With the government's economic policy, students with NPF will not receive the support measures they are entitled to in a timely manner. This leads to the schools breaking the law regarding counteracting the consequences of disabilities for these children and young people as far as possible.
This has been noted at an international level. In 2023, the UN Committee on the Rights of the Child reviewed how Sweden complies with the Convention on the Rights of the Child, and their recommendation to the Swedish government is to ensure an inclusive education for all children with disabilities, including through special education teachers in the classes and individual support for the students. This means that the government receives international criticism from the UN for deprioritizing these children and young people.
A survey by the trade union Sveriges Lärare regarding extra adaptations and special support shows, for example, that only every second student who needs special support receives it. This can range from a special teaching group to individual instruction with a special education teacher. Six out of ten teachers also respond that the cuts at their school result in a reduced opportunity to provide students with special support.
It is the government's economic policy that risks affecting the group of students we are standing here and talking about. My question to the Minister for Education is therefore: Why does the government not allocate sufficient resources to the schools so that they can carry out the measures that the Minister for Education mentions?
Statsrådet Lotta Edholm (L)
Mr. Speaker! There are many reasons why we have the dreadful situation we have for many students with neuropsychiatric diagnoses. Many students do not receive the support they are entitled to - the special support that all schools should have.
There are many explanations for this. One explanation is that we have had an idea of inclusion that in practice has led to exclusion. It has been believed that one can solve all students' problems in one and the same classroom with support in the classroom. This has often turned out not to work, and ultimately it has led to many of these students in practice having been left alone, perhaps with a completely untrained student assistant in a corridor.
This is naturally completely unacceptable, and therefore the government is now investing in large state grants to, for example, provide the opportunity to educate more special education teachers. It is a professional group that the Social Democrats previously wanted to completely abolish by closing the education. The idea was that we would not have special education teachers in Swedish schools. Fortunately, we have moved away from this, and therefore the government is investing in more special education teachers and also has state grants linked to this.
We also have special state grants for specific teaching groups, which did not exist before and which the municipalities can apply for to secure help and support for the students who need it the most.
We are also investing heavily financially in school social teams, which means taking advantage of all the expertise of the social services to help children and young people back to school. It concerns students who have stopped attending school, and there are many of them.
We are also ensuring that an attendance register is established in Sweden. I believe this is necessary. Sometimes it may sound a bit bureaucratic, but it is important to know who these students are and how often they are absent. This is also something that the organization Rätten till utbildning has demanded.
I am aware that more needs to be done, but I would say that this government has done significantly more in Sweden in a short time - one and a half years - than the red-green government managed to achieve during eight years.
Nadja Awad (V)
Mr. Speaker! Minister for Education Lotta Edholm says that the government is introducing large special state grants and large resources so that you can hire special teachers, ensure that there are smaller teaching groups in the schools, and establish school social teams. But that is not what the municipalities are delivering; instead, throughout the entire country, cuts are being made in the schools which primarily affect students with NPF very negatively.
I will just remind the Minister for Education about the forecasts that Sveriges Kommuner och Regioner, SKR, have delivered since the government took office. SKR says that the total deficit for municipalities and regions is expected to amount to 28 billion this year. The government chose to budget approximately one-third of what welfare, healthcare, elderly care, and schools need to hold their positions in an already strained situation.
The cuts in the school will, as I said, hit students with NPF hardest and further increase the figures presented in the new statistics on suicide propensity among NPF students.
Halmstad, Stockholm, Laholm, Ystad, Hagfors, Färgelanda, Uppsala, Skurup, Malmö, Umeå and my home municipality Örebro - the list of municipalities where cuts are currently being made in preschool and school can be long. Based on 290 school budgets for 2023, it turns out that in 98 percent of the cases, cuts are being made on the school.
The Minister for Education says that the government is delivering large state grants, but that is not true. According to Sveriges Lärares calculations for 2023, a total of 12 billion would need to be injected considering inflation alone just to maintain the current level, which is also not sufficient. And the calculations for 2024 show that an additional 16 billion is required on top of this.
The government has, according to the law, a financing responsibility towards municipalities and regions, but instead of taking this responsibility, the government tells the municipalities and regions that they should raise taxes or run with deficits. Or the government presents castles in the air, as is happening now during this debate, and says that it is providing enormous state grants to the schools.
The government's austerity policy leads to student assistants and staff within student health losing their jobs. It was those professions that the Minister for Education said at the beginning of the debate that one needed to invest in. Many schools and preschools also stop hiring substitutes when someone is sick.
This will lead to an even greater teacher shortage. Many will not be able to cope and will leave the profession. It will hardly be attractive for those who in the future choose to study to become special education teachers to do this when they witness the poor working environment and the poor working conditions. And which students will suffer most from this broken, underfunded school system? We all know who they are.
Vänsterpartiet wants to see the government step in and take responsibility for Swedish schools, above all its financing responsibility. It is the only way to guarantee that all students, especially students with NPF, shall receive equal education regardless of where in the country they live.
My question is: Can the Minister for Education give a promise, here and now, that the government in the autumn budget will take responsibility for Swedish schools and give the schools the money needed to create an equal school across the country for students with NPF?
Statsrådet Lotta Edholm (L)
Mr. Speaker! I am the first to agree that a significantly stronger governance of the Swedish school system is needed. It is not equal. Today, there is a difference of 70,000 kronor between the municipality that invests the most per pupil per year and the municipality that invests the least. Of course, there are large differences between the municipalities, for example, in how the student composition looks. However, only about half of these 70,000 kronor can be explained on objective grounds. What the rest depends on, one simply does not know.
That is why the investigation we have now commissioned regarding a national school funding norm is important. The idea is that the municipalities should not be able to fall below a norm in how much they invest in the Swedish school.
When the government makes different types of investments, for example the investment in more special education teachers, on school social teams, and on more smaller, special teaching groups, it is important that these are also financed. That is why this type of state support exists for the municipalities to apply for in order to be able to expand this activity. It is truly needed.
But then there are also other reasons that are not just about economics. There has been an ideological thought that these students have not received specific support early on. Instead, it has been believed that extra adaptations in the classroom are sufficient. It is quite obvious that that system has not functioned, and we must do something about it.
I think that today we see a great sobering up regarding the view on students with very extensive special needs. I am completely convinced that we will see improvements in this area in the future. For that, resources are naturally needed, and that is why the government, for these various initiatives, also allocates resources to the principals, i.e., the municipalities.
Nadja Awad (V)
Mr. Speaker! I am not trying to score political points when I stand here and speak. I am genuinely concerned about how the government deprioritizes students with NPF by delivering budget cuts to the municipalities, which primarily affects this group.
I am getting no answer as to whether the government intends to allocate the resources requested by, among others, Sveriges Kommuner och Regioner and which are required to ensure that no cuts occur within the school system. We cannot afford to wait. When we know that the mental ill-health and the tendency toward suicide among these students is so enormous and widespread, we also know that the cuts will hit them hardest and further increase the figures shown by the new statistics on the tendency toward suicide.
We must not forget that the tendency toward suicide is a result of constantly having to experience failure after failure, a strong sense of exclusion, and a great anxiety about not managing in the future. It is a result of a broken school system that is severely underfunded due to this government's deprioritization of the most vulnerable students. I believe that the Minister for Education and the government must take responsibility for this.
Statsrådet Lotta Edholm (L)
Mr. Speaker! I can truly agree that we have a broken school system. The decentralization was a big mistake, which the Left Party at that time actually contributed to as well. I am the first to say that we should have much more state control of Swedish schools than we have today.
I am despairing when I see these figures. It is a great betrayal against children with different types of diagnoses that we have a school system that functions so poorly for many of these students as it actually does. We must collectively change this. I am completely convinced that, for example, more special education teachers are needed, not just teachers with general special pedagogical competence but teachers who are specifically trained to help students with this type of problematic issues. We also need many more smaller, special teaching groups than we have today in Swedish schools. We need more cooperation between school and social services in the form of school social teams to help those young people who must return to school. We also need, I would like to say, more research in this area than what exists.
I agree, however: In large parts, we have a broken school system. I am now doing my absolute best to fix that system.
Source: The Swedish Parliament. The speeches come from the open data of the Riksdag, translated into English by AI, which may contain errors.