Response to interpellation 2023/24:288 on the school situation for students with NPF
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 school situation for students with NPF. L proposes investments in special education teachers, smaller teaching groups, and school social teams 1 2. L wants to review curricula and grading criteria to make the requirements reasonable 1 3 and emphasizes the importance of rules of order and safety to counteract disruption and bullying 3. L believes that rules of order benefit students with NPF diagnoses 2 and that students with autism should not be expected to have the same support as others 2. S argues that the government's economy leads to fewer teaching positions and that cuts affect students with NPF 4. S criticizes the government's repressive line and argues that preventive measures are better than punishment 4 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.
Statsrådet Lotta Edholm (L)
Mr. Speaker! Linus Sköld has asked me how I will ensure that students with neuropsychiatric diagnoses get the same chance as others to succeed in school.
Too many students do not get access to effective support measures in a timely manner. This also applies to students with neuropsychiatric disabilities, NPF. Schools therefore need to be given better conditions to meet the students' needs for support measures. The support must also be implemented earlier than it is today. To support the schools in this work, the government is carrying out, among other things, large investments to give the schools better opportunities to employ more special education teachers and establish more special, smaller teaching groups. To address the shortage of special education teachers, we are also ensuring that more people can train to become special education teachers.
It is also necessary that we review today's curricula and grading criteria. Since there is a large variation regarding cognitive prerequisites within the target group of each school form, the knowledge requirements that are set, especially for grade E, must be reasonable in relation to the entire school form's target group, including students with neuropsychiatric functional impairments.
We know that NPF can also be a risk factor for long-term school absence if students do not receive the right support. Therefore, the government is improving the headmasters' opportunities to strengthen cooperation between school and social services and increase attendance for students through the initiative on school social teams.
Investigations and reports testify that school absence constitutes a major problem. At the same time, knowledge regarding the extent of the absence is deficient. The Government has therefore recently made a decision on the committee directive Permanently improved safety and study in school (dir. 2023:154).
The investigation's mandate includes submitting a proposal for a national absence register that can enable systematic follow-ups at several different levels and where, among other things, aspects concerning NPF in particular shall be considered. The investigation shall also propose measures that ensure a zero-tolerance policy prevails against all forms of harassment and offensive treatment, including bullying, in schools, partly against the background that children and young people with NPF are subjected to harassment.
It is also important that teachers are given good conditions to provide effective support to students with NPF. Earlier this year, the Government allocated funds and tasked the Swedish National Agency for Education and the National Agency for Special Needs Education to strengthen the support for children and students with NPF.
Furthermore, the possibilities to follow up on how it goes for students with disabilities in school must be good. The investigation on more knowledge about children and students with disabilities in the school system presented its report on December 15, and the proposals are now being prepared within the Government Offices.
Linus Sköld (S)
Mr. Speaker! The parents' network Rätten till utbildning has jointly processed statistics from Socialstyrelsen and SCB to obtain data on how the school functions for students with neuropsychiatric functional impairments. Mr. Speaker, one wonders of course how it has gone, and the answer is: not so well.
Every third student with neuropsychiatric functional impairments finishes ninth grade without eligibility for upper secondary school. This can be compared with students who do not have such a diagnosis, where 12 percent finish without eligibility for upper secondary school. It is thus almost three times as common that students with NPF do not become eligible after primary school.
The average merit value for the group with NPF is 159 points, compared to 235 for those who do not have an NPF diagnosis. This has fatal consequences. There is also information regarding suicide frequency in the student population. The group with neuropsychiatric functional impairments, which constitutes 11.4 percent of the surveyed cohort, accounts for almost every other suicide attempt.
It is understandable that it must be terrible to attend a school that demands that one should manage things in an environment that makes the disability a barrier. The consequences are visible in the results, in problematic absenteeism, as the minister pointed out, and in how the mental ill-health among young people is skyrocketing.
When the figures were presented, Lotta Edholm had the opportunity to comment on them in Sveriges Radio. At that time, she referred to the investigation on safety and study environment that the government has commissioned. Firstly, the said investigation contains a long series of ideas about repression, that is, punishment, but no ideas on how disorder and insecurity should be prevented. Secondly, safety and study environment can well hardly be the only answer to how students with neuropsychiatric functional disabilities should get the same chance to succeed in school. That is why we have this debate today.
When Lotta Edholm is given the opportunity today to elaborate on how she will ensure that students with NPF get the same opportunities, she responds that she is investing heavily in ensuring that schools have better opportunities to employ more special education teachers. But when one examines that claim, it can be stated that the state funding for schools this year is sufficient for 3,000 fewer teaching positions than during our last year in government, 2022. In that way, there will not be more special education teachers.
When it is also the municipalities' primary responsibility to finance the school, the government is seriously underfunding the municipalities. The consequences of these cuts are clearly evident. There are 13 municipalities that have raised taxes at the turn of the year. Every third municipality ran a deficit in 2023, and 2024 is expected to be worse.
The Minister for Finance said in the autumn: Budget with a deficit! There are municipalities that have done so. My home municipality, Piteå, is an example. The budgeted deficit is 116 million, and yet one can read in the local newspaper about the administration's worry that the money and resources will not be sufficient to support students with neuropsychiatric functional impairments. How will it then go in municipalities where local politicians cannot, will not, or dare not follow the Minister for Finance's request?
One in three students with neuropsychiatric disabilities does not become eligible for upper secondary school. Students with neuropsychiatric disabilities have an average merit value that is 76 points lower. This has fatal consequences. What should we do about this, beyond cuts and repressive proposals, Education Minister?
Statsrådet Lotta Edholm (L)
Mr. Speaker! I completely share Linus Sköld's concern regarding these students and their opportunities to succeed in the Swedish school system. For a long series of years, we have believed that the answer to all questions is inclusion and have not understood that some of these students need, for example, significantly smaller teaching groups and more special education teachers than other students. I am completely convinced that this perspective must change before we can resolve these problems.
But I am a bit surprised that Linus Sköld does not think that the investigation into safety and study environment is important without everything just being about repression. No students are likely to be affected as severely by a messy classroom as students who have severe concentration difficulties, for example. We know that students with NPF diagnoses are affected by bullying to a greater extent than other students. Therefore, it is important that there are rules of order and that the school's staff - teachers, principals and so on - feel strong support behind them when they try to uphold the rules of order we have agreed upon.
It is also important to know how large the absenteeism is in Swedish schools. That is why this investigation shall also present a proposal for a national absenteeism register. We know, after all, that many of these children are stay-at-home students.
We will also already now, during 2024, give a mandate concerning mapping student absenteeism in 2024 to see whether it has increased or decreased. This is a follow-up of a previous evaluation that was made a few years ago.
We must also review the curricula, which we have discussed previously. For some students, it is almost impossible to achieve the grade E because the requirements are set in such a way that they simply are not able to do this. We must do something about that.
We must do something about the grading system, which is also very stressful because one doesn't really know what it is one is supposed to achieve.
I believe that the investigation into safety and study environment is very important, not least for those students who have NPF diagnoses. We know, after all, that a noisy classroom, where one also doesn't quite know what it is one is supposed to do and where there might be friends who are mean to you, is a major problem.
Linus Sköld (S)
Mr. Speaker! For me, it is difficult to follow the Minister's logic. For decades, the Minister and her party comrades have attacked us Social Democrats and tried to attribute to us the view that we want to lower the requirements, when we have said that we want to investigate whether the failed grade level leads to negative, potentially lifelong, consequences. Now the Minister stands here and says that she wants to lower the requirements that her own party comrade Jan Björklund stipulated when he was Minister at the Ministry of Education and decided how the knowledge requirements, as they were called then, should look. Now it is these requirements that Lotta Edholm wants to lower. I cannot make the logic add up.
With these statistics, a letter was sent to all members of the Education Committee. I thought I would read out a quote. The letter comes from a parents' network, an association of parents of children with neuropsychiatric disabilities of various kinds. They have described it as follows:
"Having a neuropsychiatric functional impairment means that you may have challenges with focus, concentration, and completing tasks. Perhaps you also often become restless and have difficulty controlling your impulses. You may need help with planning, prioritizing, starting up, focusing, and finishing. Having npf does not, of course, automatically mean problems such as worry, anxiety, depression - and a feeling of no longer wanting to live. These consequences are instead the result of constantly having to experience failure after failure, a strong sense of exclusion, and a severe anxiety about not managing in the future. [- - -] This makes us very concerned about the proposals for tougher measures in school that we hear daily from politicians, because it will lead to even more mental ill-health for children with npf."
I am thinking about the minister's lack of understanding regarding my criticism of the repression. During the previous parliamentary term, the Liberals presented a reform package that they called Ordningslyftet. Now they have joined forces with the Sweden Democrats and pulled out with these committee directives - I don't remember exactly how they were formulated. It is just repression.
I think it would be interesting to hear Lotta Edholm reason about the risk that students who, for example, have concentration difficulties, become restless and have difficulty controlling their impulses, will also be the students who are punished when the environment causes their disability to become a functional barrier. The repressive line will lead to them being punished for this. How does the Minister view that risk?
Statsrådet Lotta Edholm (L)
Mr. Speaker! I believe that students with NPF diagnoses are those who benefit most from there being peace and quiet in the classrooms, that there are clear rules of order that the adult world ensures are upheld, and that it is ensured that students who bully other students must stop this. Schools in Sweden are more rowdy than in other countries. We have greater problems with order and discipline than many other countries. I am completely convinced that we must do something about it.
But that does not mean we are to have a repressive school. I actually do not understand this. I believe that most students want a school where there is peace and quiet, where teachers do not accept being called gender slurs, for example, and where violence and threats are not part of everyday life. The students who are absolutely worst affected when we have such a situation in the school are students with neuropsychiatric diagnoses.
Of course, we are not going to lower the requirements in our course and subject plans and in our grading system. We are going to change them so that they become more in line with how children's brains develop. Today, there are students who, even when they actually exert themselves very hard, have difficulty achieving the goals and grading criteria that exist. So, we naturally cannot have that. I look forward to the investigations when they arrive.
Linus Sköld (S)
Madam Speaker! In summary, I hear that Lotta Edholm does not want to acknowledge at all the risk that students with concentration difficulties and difficulties with impulse control would be subject to, for example, being expelled from the classroom without prior warning, as an example of how to tighten the repressive measures. I believe, just like Lotta Edholm, that everyone wants a classroom that is calm and safe to be in, but the best way to achieve that is not to resort to the harshest punishment when something goes wrong, but to prevent something from going wrong. To prevent the disruption of order and prevent the violation is the best way to achieve calm and safety in the classroom, not to give the strongest reprimand when something has already gone wrong.
I add to this that I note that Lotta Edholm has no objection to my description of how the government's economic policy risks affecting this group of students. These are savings on schools and cuts for municipalities - and in that regard also for regions; this is a group of students who will be affected by longer waiting times to BUP with the economy that the regions are facing. I therefore note that Lotta Edholm has no objections to my way of describing the economic policy, and I take that as a confirmation that cuts and repression are the answer to how Lotta Edholm wants to make the school situation better for students with NPF.
Statsrådet Lotta Edholm (L)
Madam Speaker! I must admit that I actually do not understand how Linus Sköld thinks it is okay that it is as it is in the classrooms today. Today, we are closing schools in Sweden instead of shutting out a small number of students who threaten and who sometimes even use violence in Swedish schools.
The reports to Arbetsmiljöverket regarding threats and violence have more than doubled over ten years. We must take this very seriously. One way to do that is to ensure that there are rules of order that are actually upheld. This also benefits students with NPF diagnoses. Of course, a teacher in a classroom situation should be able to use the means required, but just as clearly, one must take the student's circumstances into account.
A major problem has been that we have thought that students with, for example, autism should sit in the same classroom and have the same type of support as the other students in the class. We need more smaller teaching groups, not least for this category of students. We also need more special education teachers who can help students directly to achieve the goals. We also need a strong student health service.
To simply say that there is no problem with order and discipline in schools and that we can leave it as it is, while at the same time we know that the order problems and bullying have increased and that many teachers do not feel a sense of support from politics when they actually use the means available in the Education Act to ensure that there is peace and quiet in the classroom, I actually find that strange.
Source: The Swedish Parliament. The speeches come from the open data of the Riksdag, translated into English by AI, which may contain errors.