Response to interpellation 2022/23:275 on emergency schools
Translated from Swedish by AI; the translation may contain errors. The Swedish text is the original.
Summary AI, written in advance
L believes that emergency schools are necessary for safety and study 1 and that they help school leaders create good operations 2. L emphasizes that all students should receive support 1 and that more preventive work was needed 3. L argues that teachers should not be afraid 3. SD believes that emergency schools are important to protect the silent majority from disruption 4 and that students who disrupt too much today do not receive good instruction 5. SD argues that these students would fare better in an emergency school with trained staff 5. S argues that the state grant is too low and that the reform is unclear.
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 how I intend to ensure that children's right to support is met in the emergency schools that the government wants to be established.
Initially, I want to emphasize that it is a self-evident matter that children and students who need support shall receive it and that this is the responsibility of the school principals. It appears from the Education Act that all students shall be given the guidance and stimulation they need in their learning and in their personal development so that, based on their own circumstances, they can develop as far as possible according to the goals of the education. If a student needs special support, he or she shall be given such support. Furthermore, all students have the right to an education characterized by safety and a teaching characterized by studiousness.
Unfortunately, it is chaotic in Swedish schools today. It also occurs that serious situations arise where students disturb the teaching or threaten other students and school staff in such a way that the students' right to safety and study is sidelined. In that situation, there are often no practical possibilities to temporarily move students outside their own school unit if necessary.
To manage these students, the government is now undertaking an initiative that enables principals to establish so-called emergency schools, where students can be placed temporarily when less intrusive measures have not been sufficient. The intention of such a placement is to create a better school situation both for the student who needs the temporary placement and for the other students and staff in the student's regular school unit. The regular school unit also gets time to investigate and prepare any support measures for the temporarily placed student's return to the school unit. The emergency schools thus contribute to securing continuity in education for all students.
According to the recently decided ordinance (2023:117) on state grants for personnel costs for emergency schools, special teachers, and student health, grants can be provided to a primary school head for personnel in an emergency school, if the personnel have certification as a teacher or relevant education in psychosocial work. I also want to emphasize that all students shall receive the support they need - and at as early a stage as possible. The provisions of the Education Act regarding the student's development towards the goals, including the provisions on the right to support, also apply in the case of a temporary placement at an emergency school.
Linus Sköld (S)
Madam Speaker! In recent months, Lotta Edholm and I have debated several issues in the chamber where it is painfully obvious that the government and those who actually decide are not in agreement. This concerns, for example, religious independent schools or mother tongue instruction, where the Liberals have clearly yielded to the positions held by the Sweden Democrats.
Today's debate is probably not different. Before the election, both the Sweden Democrats and the Liberals presented their positions on new forms of sorting schools, which are not particularly well-defined. The Liberals called them emergency schools. And SD had two ideas, namely duty schools and obligation schools. Those who have taken part of both parties' views have learned the following.
The Liberals wanted 250 million to be allocated for emergency schools in the coming years. The Liberals' emergency schools would be schools where suspended students can receive their education during the period of suspension. The proposal seems to be connected to the fact that the Liberals believe too few students are suspended in the Swedish school system. I personally think, in contrast to this, that every suspension is an unwanted failure.
Well! The Sweden Democrats declared in Smålandsposten before the election their view: Students who have not obeyed reprimands shall be moved to duty class or duty school until they behave well and are judged capable of returning to regular classroom instruction. No time limit shall exist. For particularly violent students, special compulsory schools shall be established where the focus, in addition to studies, shall lie on norms and values.
In the Tidö Agreement, the government and the Sverigedemokraterna then agreed on the wording: For the schooling of particularly violent students, measures are taken to facilitate special emergency schools/acute schools with trained staff.
The wording is, as can be heard, borrowed from the Sweden Democrats' political idea of duty schools, but one cannot even agree on what the form of that sorting school should be called - day schools/emergency schools in the agreement.
The existing legislation does not regulate emergency schools, after-school programs, or compulsory schools. But I have worked with applying the existing legislation, and I know that it enables school staff to take incredibly intrusive measures and make far-reaching adjustments to the teaching in order to provide each student with the support they need and to fulfill the right to education that children have according to the Convention on the Rights of the Child and according to Swedish law. Decisions on relocation, decisions on suspension, adapted study paths, special teaching groups, individual instruction with the child's best interests in mind are possible within the framework of the existing legislation. The normal case must, of course, be prevention, that all students can participate in the education within the regular activities, but when situations arise that are difficult to manage, school staff, in particular the principal, have an incredibly strong mandate to act, to do what is required as long as decisions are made with the student's learning and development in focus.
We have also recently regulated the presence of resource schools within the Swedish school system in the Education Act. These also aim to provide students with support in learning to meet the goals of the education. Emergency schools, duty schools, and mandatory schools seem to have a different purpose. I would like the Minister to clarify what she intends for the new school type to be, namely whether it is to be Sweden Democrat punishment and upbringing institutions or if it is schools where a student who is in difficulty shall have their need for support met.
Robert Stenkvist (SD)
Madam Speaker! Acute schools should naturally not be punishment and correctional institutions. When I went to school once upon a time, the Social Democrats introduced "obsklasser" (out-of-class groups). It was not a punishment, but it was special teaching groups as you call them. We call them acute schools.
The Social Democrats themselves have paved the way for separating students for shorter or longer periods in the bill Skolans arbete med trygghet och studiero. The Social Democrats themselves cannot be completely unaware that there are serious problems that must be solved.
A government must ensure that the legislation is used, not just submit propositions. My question to Minister Edholm is whether the proposal regarding the emergency school is a way to ensure that safety and study become practical action, not just empty words.
There are today major problems in some areas with a lack of study environment and also an insecurity in the schools. Not least in my home municipality Botkyrka, it is a major problem in some places. One school was even managed by Skolinspektionen for a couple of years, and that is a serious warning bell. We must somewhere react to the warning bells that are nevertheless ringing. Then one can discuss the difference between special teaching groups and emergency schools, but the tools that exist and will exist in the future shall be used to the extent that they are necessary - more often than today, contrary to what Linus Sköld says.
The principals do not always ensure that students receive the study time that many students are entitled to. I read not so long ago that a school in Skåne had to close, and the principal had not used the tools that are nevertheless available. What is Minister Lotta Edholm's view on this?
Just as the interpellor says, it is important that students with severely disruptive behavior receive the support they need. That is one of the reasons for starting emergency schools. But what the Left never talks about are all the well-behaved students who want to learn something in school and often have half of their teaching time spoiled by noise, brawls, and endless investigations of brawls that the teacher must deal with. Who stands up for the silent majority? Who takes their side, looks out for their interests? Is this not something that is the very purpose of emergency schools? These are also questions for the Minister.
Since then, I have a message for all parties. Brain research shows that our human brains are primarily wired for survival, and that is something that has helped us from the Stone Age onwards. If students feel insecure in a classroom, the survival instinct is switched on and all learning and memory are switched off. That is how our brains work, which means that in rowdy classrooms, very little learning occurs. That is a fact. Study time is the single most important factor for increased knowledge results in school today, and it is something that is truly needed.
Statsrådet Lotta Edholm (L)
Madam Speaker! Hearing Linus Sköld here is like being transported 10-15 years back in time, when the Social Democrats always claimed with some kind of spinal reflex that one should not take any disciplinary measures whatsoever against students who behave in such a way that they threaten other students, threaten staff and make teaching impossible.
As a school board member in Stockholm, I was involved in introducing emergency schools 10-15 years ago. It was extremely controversial at the time that students were moved from the regular school to instruction in a small group where they received help and support from counselors, special education teachers, social pedagogues, and so on. When the Socialdemokraterna then came to power in Stockholm in 2014, the first thing they did was to expand that activity. That was done, of course, because it was seen that it actually worked.
We have major problems with unrest in Swedish schools. There are far too many students who go to school with a knot in their stomach because they know there are students who behave in such a way that they actually frighten other students. We have testimonies of teachers who are subjected to violence in Swedish schools. Approximately half of all students experience that they have been subjected to either threats or violence in primary school. It is not acceptable.
Acute schools should be seen as a piece of the puzzle in the work to ensure that we get a bit more peace and quiet in our schools - while at the same time creating an opportunity to help those students who obviously need help and support to complete their schooling without threatening their friends or staff at the school.
This is an opportunity. In the municipalities that choose to apply for this state grant, the school principal will know that if a temporary relocation of a student is made, there is a place where that student can go where there is sensible support and trained staff. I believe it is a win-win situation, both for students and staff in our schools who are afraid to go to school or to work there, and for the students who obviously need help and support. But, as I said, I am above all quite surprised that the Social Democrats have now completely backed away from the idea that disciplinary measures were actually sometimes needed in our school system.
Linus Sköld (S)
Madam Speaker! The Minister knows very well that it was not what I said. But I and the Social Democrats have the starting point that the best violation is the one that never occurs.
The Minister and, surprisingly, also Robert Stenkvist said just now that the new school type shall aim to meet students' needs for support. That is the intention. In that case, the Minister needs to explain instead how this relates to the existing regulations on special teaching groups and, in that regard, resource schools, which both exist to meet students' needs for special support.
Why was another type of school needed? And if it was needed, why does the minister not want to do it properly? Regulate that type of school, and ensure that there is an opportunity to establish that type of school at all school providers where there are students who would need it!
Primary school in Sweden has over 850 principals. Of the Liberals' election promise of 250 million, it became 50 million in a targeted state grant. I must point out the obvious: If one wants to achieve an effect from this reform, that sum is laughably low.
At home in Älvsbyn, where I am a local politician and have worked as a principal, we have barely a thousand students in primary school. That usually means that around one thousandth of a state grant can be expected to end up with us. In this case, that means 50,000. Even if you include the co-financing requirement, it is only 100,000 per year. A teaching position costs more than five times that. How is Älvsbyn municipality supposed to be able to establish "jourskolor" (on-call schools) with such funding? Or perhaps it is not the intention that all of Sweden's school providers should have the opportunity to establish the new school type, which Lotta Edholm sings about from the rostrum?
I would say that this is irresponsible. The starting point for this reform has been three different ideas on how to sort out students who behave in a norm-breaking manner. The three different ideas are defined in different ways by the political parties that decide, and no one can really figure out what they mean. The Government is not investigating the issue and does not seem to have any ambition to clarify what the needs are or what the new sorting schools should aim for.
Instead, the government slides, so to speak, indefinitely into a reform and introduces an anorectic state grant that, at best, will be able to provide some funding to certain, large school principals - Lotta Edholm's Stockholm, for example. The idea that the system should be uniform because the students in Älvsbyn have the same duty and right to educate themselves as the students in Stockholm or Malmö or Åmål, the minister does not attach much importance to with such a procedure.
If the Minister feels confident that students will receive support in their learning in this underfunded, unregulated school type, why should students in Älvsbyn have worse opportunities than students with the larger school providers?
Robert Stenkvist (SD)
Madam Speaker! Linus Sköld's care for the students is genuine, I believe, and touching.
I have received calls from upset people in Malmö and can say that even today there are a lot of students who cannot be in regular classrooms because they disturb too much, who are separated from school activities. They are separated in spaces where they do not receive sufficiently good teaching and where they mostly wander around, play on computers and play cards. That is what they do according to the information I have obtained.
These students would feel much better if they attended an emergency school and received instruction from trained staff. No one here wants the students to suffer. We all want it to work, both in emergency classes or whatever they are called and in regular classes.
I am requesting once again for care for the silent majority, for all the students who become greatly disturbed in their regular teaching. Who is thinking about them? Who is taking care of their interests? They also have a right to a calm and good study time and to study time. We have compulsory school; they have a right to it, quite simply.
I shall leave the financing to the Minister to answer. But as I understand it, the main part of the financing is to take place through the municipalities for the time being. We have, for the time being, municipal primary responsibility in our country.
Statsrådet Lotta Edholm (L)
Madam Speaker! Linus Sköld uses the term sorting school when he argues against the acute schools. There, he has set the bar for what he thinks Swedish school should do when students behave in such a way that other students and the school's staff feel threatened and sometimes even subjected to violence. It is a sorting school when one ensures that those students can no longer behave in that way. I think that is a bit sad.
Linus Sköld also says that the best violation is the one that does not occur. That is well completely obvious. I believe we all in this chamber share that perception. Nevertheless, violations occur every day in Swedish schools, despite the school law that Linus Sköld is now holding up to the skies. We have major problems in Swedish schools when it comes to this. Akutskolor are a way to help school leaders ensure that there is good activity that is not located in the own school.
Linus Sköld is pursuing two different lines in this debate. On the one hand, he says that this was not needed with the legislation that exists, because it is not a problem, because the best violation is the one that does not occur, and because everyone is doing their best and so on. I think this is a mockery of all those teachers and principals who are truly trying to maintain order in our schools today, who are trying to protect students from other students who actually perhaps cannot be in ordinary classrooms but who must receive a different type of instruction. But on the other hand, Linus Sköld says that there is far too little money.
On the one hand, this is not needed because it is a bad proposal, on the other hand, there is too little money - I think Linus Sköld should decide. Either he thinks this is a good idea, and then perhaps more money is needed. Or else there should be no money at all, if he thinks it is a bad idea. But I also want to say that it is actually up to the school principals whether they want to apply for these funds or not. I guess Älvsbyn will not do it.
Linus Sköld (S)
Madam Speaker! I have pointed out some obvious concerns regarding how this reform is constituted. That does not mean that I can take a position either for or against it, because it is so unclear what purpose it is intended to serve, how it is to function, and how it relates to other types of measures, both disciplinary measures and support measures. I have been incredibly clear about that during this debate. I have given Lotta Edholm three opportunities at this point to clarify this. Instead, she chooses to attack my manner of debating. I do not think it befits a minister to behave in that way.
The idea that I would be against disciplinary measures and that this is what I have devoted this debate to is wrong. I think that one needs to be able to hold several thoughts in one's head at the same time. If it is so obvious that the best violation is the one that never occurs, why do I never hear the minister talk about the preventive work? Why do I never hear the minister talk about how we build safe schools for safe children without just talking about how we should discipline them to be afraid of making mistakes?
I think the risk is obvious that this type of decision, this type of measure, will affect students who have difficulties in their school situation in an incredibly harsh and ruthless way, and I would like the minister, in her final statement, to explain how she will ensure that this does not risk becoming a punishment for students who have disabilities or other difficulties, such as difficulties with impulse control, or who act in a norm-breaking way because they have difficulties reading social codes, and that this does not become a measure to remove those students from a regular classroom situation.
Statsrådet Lotta Edholm (L)
Madam Speaker! For a Member of Parliament who has not taken a stand on whether this is right or wrong, it is quite strange that Linus Sköld uses terms such as sorting school and says that this is a harsh and merciless way toward those students who actually behave in such a way in school that both teachers and other students are afraid. It shows that Linus Sköld is back to the Social Democratic thinking that it is always a pity for the one who behaves in a way that is not okay in a classroom or in a school.
The best violation is the one that does not occur - I completely share that perception. More preventive work was needed, and more early interventions were also needed. Swedish school is poor at early interventions. Social services are poor at early interventions. That is why we also allocate money in this budget for school social teams - that is, among other things, for this. This is also something that the municipalities can apply for.
But what I think is important with this discussion is that we must find more ways for more students to be safe in their school, so that teachers are not afraid to go to their work at the school and that school leaders should know that there are opportunities to relocate a student for a shorter period so that good measures can be implemented there and planning can be done for that student's continued schooling. When we did this in Stockholm, we did a small evaluation of what people thought. They were consistently positive assessments, and those who were most positive were actually the students who had been placed in the emergency schools.
Source: The Swedish Parliament. The speeches come from the open data of the Riksdag, translated into English by AI, which may contain errors.