Response to interpellation 2022/23:178 on equality in the school system
Translated from Swedish by AI; the translation may contain errors. The Swedish text is the original.
Summary AI, written in advance
L believes that the state needs to take increased responsibility to increase equality in schools 1. L advocates for a nationally binding school funding norm to increase equality through state governance of the funding 1. L thinks it is important to increase the state's influence over Swedish schools 2. L argues that more special education teachers and opportunities for special teaching groups are needed 2. L emphasizes that they want stronger state governance and that investments in teaching materials are an important equality initiative 3 4. L argues that municipalization led to problems and that the inquiry on nationalization constitutes an important basis 5.
Written by AI in advance and may contain errors. The numbers lead to the speech a statement builds on; check against the text below.
Statsrådet Lotta Edholm (L)
Madam Speaker! Linus Sköld has asked me what I intend to do in light of the conclusions of the nationalization inquiry. Linus Sköld has also asked me how I intend to act to increase equality in the school system.
The investigation into increased state responsibility for schools, the so-called nationalization investigation, has in its report *Statens ansvar för skolan* presented a decision-making and knowledge basis for state ownership or strengthened state responsibility for schools. The investigation's assessments will constitute a valuable basis in the government's continued work. The report was referred for consultation on March 31, and it will be very interesting to receive the views of the referral bodies on the investigation.
It is of the utmost importance that all schools are given equal conditions and that the quality of the operations is strengthened. To increase equality in the school system, it is clear to me that the state actually needs to take increased responsibility. The Government considers that steps should be taken to introduce a nationally binding school funding norm in order to increase equality in the Swedish school throughout the country through state steering of the funding. An introduction of a nationally binding school funding norm implies a major change that requires an investigation. The matter is currently being prepared within the Government Offices. The report that the Investigation on increased state responsibility for the school has submitted will constitute an important knowledge base in that work.
The state is already making major investments today to promote equality in Swedish schools. In the budget bill for 2023, there are, among other things, investments to improve access to new teaching materials, increase access to special education teachers, strengthen language, reading, and writing development, and implement investments in holiday school also in lower grades. The lack of equality across the country is one of the biggest challenges in Swedish schools today and will be an important area for this government moving forward.
Linus Sköld (S)
Madam Speaker! Thank you, Minister, for the opportunity to debate an important issue! The biggest problem that the Swedish school system has is the lack of equality. If this, I think, the Minister and I are in agreement.
The impact of family background on results has increased in recent decades, and even when results trend upwards, inequality continues to increase. The Swedish school system is becoming increasingly segregated, meaning that students from strong family backgrounds with well-educated parents attend certain schools and students from weaker circumstances attend others. The large school corporations' ability to make a profit depends on their ability to sort out children with well-educated parents into their schools, and in this way, the school market deepens the segregation of the student body.
Furthermore, we have different conditions for different principals. Municipal and independent schools have different responsibilities but the same funding. It is an injustice that weakens the system's ability to compensate for unequal upbringing conditions.
And so it was this with the fact that the municipalities have the primary responsibility for the school's financing. There are enormous differences in how large costs the municipalities have calculated per pupil. It could have been okay if there were a need or a structural difference between the municipalities that justified the large cost difference – such as sparseness or social vulnerability – but that is not the case. That is not the pattern, in any case. When it comes to the municipal resource, it seems instead to be the case as follows: Municipalities with great taxing power invest more per pupil than municipalities with small taxing power. And in wealthy municipalities, wealthy citizens live. The consequence is therefore that children of the rich receive a more costly education than children of the poor.
I add that the principals have very different capacities to carry out strategic and systematic quality and development work. This is primarily related to the fact that the school principals are very different in size. They range from tiny independent schools with a few dozen children to large cities and school corporations that have hundreds of thousands of students – with the same responsibility.
The Social Democrats' response to this, in addition to taming the segregating profit interest in the school sector, has been an increased state responsibility. We have begun building a national system with quality indicators to support municipalities and independent providers in their systematic quality work. Quality dialogues, where representatives of the state regularly have conversations with representatives of the providers to assist in the quality work, is another measure.
It is also about a regionalized Swedish National Agency for Education to reduce the distance between the state and the school providers. The Agency's presence throughout the country would ensure that the authority better understands the conditions of the providers it supports. And it is not least about the expansion of the equity grant. We have successively expanded the state grant, and it is distributed to all providers weighted based on the student group's socioeconomic factors. In our budget motion for 2023, we allocated over 7.6 billion to the equity grant.
The evaluation that Statskontoret made of the contribution in 2021 shows that it has functioned. It is used to a very large extent, and it can be used effectively to meet locally identified needs.
The Minister for Education, however, does not seem to favor the forward movement of the state's positions that we have initiated. Instead, the Minister for Education is gradually dismantling that system. It is defunded quality dialogues, a halt to Skolverket's regionalization, and cuts to the equity grant.
Why does the government want to roll back reforms that have increased the state's responsibility for both funding and quality?
Fredrik Malm (L)
Madam Speaker! Thank you very much, Linus Sköld, Socialdemokraterna, for the interpellation and School Minister Lotta Edholm, Liberalerna, for the answer to this and for the arguments that have been presented!
We have a huge challenge in Sweden if we look at our school and our education system, because we have a lack of equality. What does that mean? What does it imply? Well, it means that children in some municipalities or in some schools receive a better education than children and young people in other schools, as a result of a number of different factors. And this means that one gets different life chances in life.
Today in Sweden, we have approximately 16,000 15-year-olds who do not qualify to study in the high school's national programs. It is an enormous failure. It means that we knock out thousands of young people every year who are not given the opportunity to study in high school and who therefore find it incredibly difficult to get a job.
We have large differences between municipalities and schools. We have 290 municipalities in Sweden, and it is estimated that there are approximately 250 different ways to calculate the school funding, that is, how much one invests per pupil in the school. It is clear that this results in very large differences.
We also have large differences in the proportion of qualified teachers in schools. Some schools may have 100 percent teachers who are qualified, i.e., who have completed long educations. Other schools may have a qualification rate of 50 percent, 40 percent, or 60 percent. There, many teachers teach – and they even issue grades – despite the fact that they are not educated to do this. We have differences in grading assessments and much more.
Madam Speaker! I would say that the main reason for this is that the school was municipalized 30 years ago. We received a municipal headship, and decision-making was decentralized to 290 municipalities in Sweden. This has led to the status of the teaching profession falling and to many children and young people not receiving the education they actually have a right to receive.
This particularly affects many immigrants who do not have Swedish as their mother tongue. They need more measures and support measures so that they can quickly learn Swedish and master the other subjects. We get a difference between those who are born in Sweden and have Swedish as their mother tongue and those who do not have Swedish as their mother tongue, which unfortunately also creates differences for many for many years to come.
The investigation on which the interpellation is based concerns whether one should return to state ownership. It is my opinion, Madam Speaker, that one should do so. There is no political support in the Riksdag to go all the way with this, but it is undoubtedly the case that we must increase the state's influence over Swedish schools.
What is it then that is important? Linus Sköld brings up some things that are more at the system level and state subsidy level and some other things. It is definitely very important, but if we go down to the classroom level, I think we see that what is the absolutely most important for creating increased equality in school are quite basic things. It is about, for example, that it is calm and quiet during the lessons, that it is not complete chaos in the corridors and during lessons, and that teachers feel that they have a work environment that is reasonable.
If the school fails, it is always the students who have it hardest who are affected. If there is chaos in the school, it is the children who do not have Vilhelm Moberg and Selma Lagerlöf crowding each other on the bookshelf at home who are hit hardest.
We must also re-establish a working environment in Swedish schools for both students and teachers that makes one feel a greater sense of security, and the government is working very much on this.
Statsrådet Lotta Edholm (L)
Madam Speaker! I am sincerely pleased that the Social Democrats are finally beginning to discuss the equality in the Swedish school system. When the Social Democrats pushed through the municipalization approximately 30 years ago, against the will of the profession and against a large minority in the Riksdag, it was believed that it would mean that the school would become better.
In the actual work, we faced greater problems. Government after government has tried to manage this by adding state grants, but the state grants are so small, less than 10 percent, in relation to what the municipalities invest. Even if we add enormous sums, it is still the municipal financing that is the basis.
Just as Linus Sköld and Fredrik Malm point out, the differences are very large. There are large differences in how much money the municipalities choose to invest in their schools, but also in how many qualified teachers one has, how much turnover one has in school leaders, how many books one has in the classrooms and also, I would like to say, what view one has on education and knowledge in different municipalities. The conditions are very, very different.
I believe that we in this chamber must try to find a consensus on this, and the investigation that Thomas Persson conducted forms a very important basis for the work towards a more equal school. It is why we will now appoint an investigation into a national school funding norm which means that the municipalities cannot go as low as they want in their investments but which also naturally must take into account that conditions are very different. It is not the same thing to run a school in the interior of Norrbotten as in a suburb of Stockholm or in central Gothenburg. The differences are enormous, and such an investigation must also naturally take that into account.
I do not think this will be an easy path, but I really look forward to the discussion. It is also good that the Social Democrats now believe that there are major problems with equality and that we must find ways to ensure that equality increases in our municipalities.
Linus Sköld (S)
Madam Speaker! Even though the Minister for Education tries to give the impression that the Social Democrats have only recently begun to advocate for increased state responsibility, this is not true. For many years, we have been of the opinion that the state needs to take a more proactive role when it comes to the responsibility for the school.
I would like to go through some things that have happened. We start with the January Agreement. The Liberals have, as the Minister and also Fredrik Malm point out, been of the opinion that the school should be nationalized. In the January Agreement, a provision was included regarding an investigation into a knowledge base for nationalization. The school is already a common concern between the state and the municipality and has always been so.
As a result of the January agreement, Anna Ekström, who is a wise person, had the investigation commissioned on what a nationalization could entail. Then Nyamko Sabuni said: "The assignment includes investigating how the financing, employer responsibility, and daily operations should function. With this investigation, we come one step closer to a nationalization of the school."
Since the Liberals left the January Agreement, and in May 2022 Johan Pehrson and the current Minister for Education wrote something on Aftonbladet's debate page that can be regarded as a pledge ahead of the election, namely that "it is high time that the state takes over the responsibility for the school and not least the full responsibility for the financing of the school system. The Liberals want to nationalize the school already during the next mandate period."
After that, the Tidö Agreement was concluded. According to the agreement, it was to be investigated whether healthcare should be nationalized, KD's core issue, but there was not a word about the Liberals' core issue and clear election promise to nationalize the school.
This autumn, the result of Thomas Persson's investigation was received. He points out that the nationalization that the Liberals have wanted to see for so long will require a tax shift of over 200 billion. It will affect 200,000 employees and take 20 years to implement. Lotta Edholm, the representative of the re-nationalization party, received the investigation and said thank you very much, but has since not commented on the content of the investigation. She actually has not done so even in this interpellation debate, despite the fact that it explicitly concerns the content of the investigation.
I think it is now crystal clear: There will be no nationalization during the current mandate period, even though the Liberals won the election, staff the responsible ministry, and promised the voters this. It is just like the nationalization with the ban on religious independent schools – blatant breaches of promise. The school party, the Liberals, has backed down on the issues they have held as the most important and regarding the clearest promises they presented to the voters in September.
My question in the interpellation was: What does the Minister intend to do in light of the conclusions of the nationalization inquiry? I note that Lotta Edholm answered today "we shall see". Probably nothing.
Fredrik Malm (L)
Madam Speaker! It sounds as if Linus Sköld is very concerned that a nationalization of the school cannot take place during this parliamentary term. I, in that case, welcome the responsible and concerned stance.
The investigation reasons that it would take 20 years. It took one and a half years to municipalize Swedish school, so that it would take 20 years to roll it back is certainly debatable.
What the Liberals said before the election was the Liberals' perception. Then we all know that we did not get a majority in the Riksdag, but we received 4.6 percent in the election. That also means that, in the usual order, we enter into negotiations with other parties.
Now the investigation has arrived, and we are, of course, continuing to work with this. Just as I said in my previous post, Madam Speaker, it is undoubtedly the case that it is very important that one increases the state's influence over Swedish school. I mentioned, among other things, the importance of greater peace of work in our classrooms. For this, some legal support and some other reforms may be needed.
It is also about economics, and it is about the fact that we need to hire more special education teachers in Swedish schools, just as we need more opportunities for special teaching groups and so on. We know that in a class of 30 students, there may be some who do not manage the teaching in that way. They need instruction in a different way or in a smaller group.
It can also be about students who in different ways cannot be kept in a class in that way, because the teaching is ruined for all students in the class. These children should not be punished for it – they need teaching in a different way, within special teaching groups and so on. This is something that we continue to work on, so we do very much to increase the equality in Swedish school.
Statsrådet Lotta Edholm (L)
Madam Speaker! I must say that I am somewhat surprised by Linus Sköld's stance on this issue. It was the Social Democrats who municipalized the Swedish school system. All the equality problems we see regarding how much the municipalities invest in their schools were something that the then Folkpartiet were afraid would happen.
I really welcome that the Social Democrats now suddenly seem to be in favor of nationalization, but I actually did not know it was in that way.
When we discussed what should be done within the framework of the January Agreement, it was a proposal that Thomas Persson was tasked to implement that was not a proposal from the Social Democrats, but it was a proposal from the Liberals - precisely because we want stronger state governance of Swedish schools. It must come to fruition.
"The sinner must be awakened," as the saying goes, and that is how one can interpret the Social Democrats. But I choose to interpret it positively, namely that you believe the state should actually take a greater responsibility.
Then there was the question of whether I have not given any comments. I have commented on the investigation numerous times. That investigation was intended to provide a knowledge base, that is to say what would be required to nationalize Swedish school, but it was also intended to point out the problems that exist. If one wants a picture of the problems regarding how equality looks, one should read the investigation. I can state that that investigation will be an important basis for the investigation that will soon be appointed regarding a national school fee norm, but the previous investigation was never tasked with submitting a proposal to nationalize but was solely to constitute a broad knowledge base. That it was so is also due to the fact that the Social Democrats have never ever been for a nationalization of Swedish school. It was you who carried out the municipalization once upon a time. And it was a municipalization that actually did not work particularly well.
Linus Sköld (S)
Madam Speaker! So that there are no misunderstandings, my previous contribution was largely about the Liberals' relationship with their voters, and the Liberals will have to take responsibility for that. The broken promises that the Liberals have committed in the government's policy will be held to account by the voters, and that is the most important thing ahead of the next election.
I hear Lotta Edholm saying that we want stronger state governance of the Swedish school. At the same time, I pointed out at the beginning of the interpellation debate that the Liberals are rolling back the reforms we have implemented to move forward the state's positions in order to reduce the distance between the state and the governing body, to create increased equality when it comes to quality and funding, and to create greater trust in the chain of command. It is a problem that has been identified many times, that is to say a supporting role for the state rather than just the controlling leg – which the Liberals usually cherish so tenderly.
One claims that they want stronger state governance while simultaneously removing the funding for Skolverket's regionalization and quality dialogues, while also announcing a reduction of the equity grant which manages to partially compensate for the injustices and inequalities that exist in the funding of the Swedish school system. I think it is a bit cheeky to claim that one is for stronger state governance when one acts in the diametrically opposite direction.
Statsrådet Lotta Edholm (L)
Madam Speaker! It was for the best that we returned to reality, namely that the Social Democrats are not for a nationalization of Swedish schools. I believed it for a while. I still hope that we can agree that greater equality is needed and that the investigation to be appointed regarding a national school voucher norm can function in such a way that it results in greater equality.
We are now making major investments in Swedish schools. We are investing money in, for example, learning materials, and we know that Sweden is the country in the Nordic region that invests the least money on learning materials. It is a major equality issue. It is even the case that municipalities that have many unqualified teachers also invest less money on professionally developed learning materials. Actually, it should be the opposite. Investing in real books in the classrooms is one of the most important equality investments we can make. And many are cheering for that investment right now.
I thank you for the debate, and I think it is good that the Social Democrats see the problems with equality in the Swedish school system. I hope that we can discuss the issue when the investigation is eventually presented to see how we can move forward in the issue of strengthening equality in Swedish schools.
Source: The Swedish Parliament. The speeches come from the open data of the Riksdag, translated into English by AI, which may contain errors.