Response to interpellation 2023/24:709 on the ban on marketing of 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 the government should combat unhealthy drivers and lack of equality in the independent school system 1. L argues that profit caps in schools with quality deficiencies are a response to the fact that profit-seeking has come at the expense of students' right to a good education 1. L emphasizes that Skolinspektionen has received more resources for supervision and that new legislation tightens the requirements for information 2. L emphasizes the importance of reliable information and that government websites should be marketed better 3. L argues that investigations into school funding norms and stricter requirements will reduce the drivers for incorrect marketing 4. S believes that the minister is not taking sufficient measures against unprofessional marketing 5. S argues that independent schools are not covered by the principle of public access 6. S believes that certain pages are marketing rather than guidance 7. SD believes that the marketing material is factual and objective 8. SD argues that the criticism should be focused on specific actors who violate the Marketing Act 8. SD argues that S uses the debate to criticize independent schools 9.
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! Paula Örn has asked me what measures I intend to take to ban the marketing of schools, so that resources are directed towards the education of children and students.
There are problems with the current rules for independent schools, and there are built-in flaws in the independent school system as a whole. The government shall combat unhealthy incentives and lack of equality. It should not be possible to make money by reducing quality, for example by hiring unqualified teachers or by not providing students with the amount of teaching time they are entitled to.
That is why the government in June 2023 gave a supplementary directive to the Inquiry on Profit in Schools, which is an important piece of a larger reorganization of the independent school policy. The directive means that the investigator shall submit proposals on profit distribution bans or other profit distribution restrictions, which I here call profit stops, in schools where there are problems that need to be addressed. Profit stops can, for example, apply if a school or preschool maintains too low a quality or if it receives state grants intended to address quality deficiencies or otherwise increase the quality of the operations. It is a response from politics to all the cases where the profit motive has come at the expense of the students' right to a good education.
In order for us to address systematic challenges in the independent school sector, better insight and transparency are also needed. An important part of that work is to achieve a long-term solution that ensures that information about schools is available. Students and their guardians must be able to trust the information provided about different schools and their educations. It is a prerequisite for a functioning and informed choice of school.
To ensure that students and guardians can receive reliable information, Skolverket shall, according to the Ordinance (2015:195) on a national information system for the school system, make certain tasks regarding school units available to the public in a national information system. Naturally, the statistics cover all schools, both municipal and independent.
The municipalities also have a legally regulated responsibility for information and shall therefore inform guardians and students about education in school forms for children and young people within the school system as well as about such pedagogical activities as referred to in Chapter 25 and which are offered in or by the municipality.
When it comes to upper secondary education, Sveriges Kommuner och Regioner, together with Friskolornas riksförbund, have developed support material to provide school principals - both public and private - with support in designing marketing initiatives according to good standards that comply with good marketing practice according to the Marketing Act (2008:486) and where the main message to students concerns the studies' structure, implementation, and results. Marketing initiatives designed according to good standards help students make well-informed choices regarding upper secondary education.
Paula Örn (S)
Madam Speaker! I thank the Minister for the answer. I am, however, a bit surprised, because I do not think there was much of an answer to the question I actually asked. I am happy to debate the poison that the profit motive in Swedish schools has become, but that was not what it was about here today.
If I am to take the chance to comment on the Minister for Education's various statements regarding profit as a driver, I can so far summarize the whole thing by saying that empty barrels make the most noise, or as a lot of talk and little workshop.
I want today's debate to be about the information and marketing of schools, so I will start by repeating my question: What measures does the Minister intend to take to, for example, ban the marketing of schools, so that the resources are instead spent on the education of children and students?
The answer, as I interpret it so far, is no measures. The Minister does not see that any further measures are needed to rectify the problems that are linked to the marketing of schools. I truly regret that.
It would be reasonable to take action to ban the frivolous marketing that currently characterizes the school market, and there are several reasons for that: The independent schools are misleading, the independent school corporations do not follow the voluntary regulation the minister refers to, money goes to things other than teaching, for example advertising, and there also does not seem to be any principle of public access for the independent schools.
Madam Speaker! A little over a year ago, the Minister for Education stood in this chamber and debated with my colleague Linus Sköld. It was also then about schools that marketed themselves with incorrect information. One example was a school that wrote on its website that it employed the best qualified teachers, but the truth was that only half of the school's mathematics teachers were qualified. The Minister for Education then said that the Swedish Schools Inspectorate must be given a significantly larger mandate to act against actors who do not follow the existing legislation. Furthermore, she said that she thought Linus Sköld's idea to ban other marketing of schools was interesting and that she took that idea to heart. This sounded good. But I do not see that the Minister has so far taken any steps for the Swedish Schools Inspectorate to be given a significantly larger mandate to act, and I do not see that anything at all has happened with the idea of banning marketing of schools.
As the Minister correctly points out, there is correct information that Skolverket has been obliged to provide since 2015. The problem is that it is not this information that reaches students and parents because schools deliberately engage in falsehoods. Does the Minister seriously mean that what students and parents should do when they receive information in their mailboxes in the form of glossy brochures in full color and marketing emails is to assume that the information is incorrect and search on Skolverket's website for other information to check what, at best, can be half-truths and, at worst, pure lies? Would it not be more reasonable for Sweden's Minister for Education to put their foot down and say that this is not okay? Would it not be reasonable to produce proposals to ban the misleading marketing instead of placing the responsibility on students and parents? Would it not be reasonable for the Minister for Education to take their responsibility?
Patrick Reslow (SD)
Madam Speaker! I become somewhat confounded when I hear Paula Örn's contribution. Her interpellation is titled Ban on marketing of schools, and the question posed in it is what measures the Council of State intends to take to ban the marketing of schools. But the entire debate seems to revolve around criticizing the independent schools once again through sweeping accusations of this and that. Already in the interpellation text, it is suggested, for example, that money is used to buy new schools. How do we know that it is the school money? There is talk of extortionate rents to an own real estate company, where the profit is taken out. But is it not the case that even municipal principals rent premises from municipal housing companies, which creates large profits that are used for other things, for example, the effects of mass immigration? We must still have reason and sense in the debate.
The school choice is important, and that requires proper enlightenment and good information about what the educations contain. The information consists, for example, of brochures that are sent home by both independent schools and municipal schools - brochures in full color, as Paula Örn expressed it. In the autumn, I was one of the parents who were showered with material from schools, mostly municipal schools. They tried to propagate for their schools, and I see nothing wrong in that; it was very good. There was nothing strange in the writings, but rather the schools spoke about where they were located, what educations and profiles they had, what opportunities there were to study courses abroad, and how previous students had experienced their education. It was nothing remarkable and no attempt to falsely lure students to apply to the school, whether from municipal schools or independent schools. It was an enlightenment, and this type of enlightenment is important and interesting when students are to choose a school.
Schools must also comply with the Marketing Act, and if a school does not do so, one may attack that specific school, not criticize generally.
Furthermore, Sveriges Kommuner och Regioner, together with Friskolornas riksförbund, have developed a manual on how marketing should be conducted. Here, printed material is mentioned, among other things, and they see no problems with it.
But for the Social Democrats, this is not about marketing, but about their constant and one-sided criticism of independent schools. They are always looking for new ways to avoid talking about the real problems in schools and therefore focus on independent schools.
Statsrådet Lotta Edholm (L)
Madam Speaker! It is extremely important that the information provided by the upper secondary schools is relevant and truthful. One must be able to trust the information that is given. Therefore, the agreement between Sveriges Kommuner och Regioner and Friskolornas riksförbund is important. To provide false information when describing one's school is a violation of the Marketing Act, and it must not occur.
Since the government took office, the School Inspectorate has received significantly more resources to carry out supervision and inspection of independent schools, which is also very important in this context. Students and parents must be able to trust that the information they receive is truthful.
It is important that there is relevant information to access when choosing a upper secondary school. On July 1 last year, therefore, new legislation came into force in this area which will begin to be applied before the autumn term of 2025. It concerns new regulations that clarify what the information shall contain, for example the orientation of the education and what the education can lead to. The requirements have thus been progressively tightened.
Paula Örn (S)
Madam Speaker! I thank the Minister for the answer.
It is not more than a few weeks since we both stood here and discussed how a large school group completely dominates the market for guidance pages for upper secondary school choices - websites where the one who pays the most is seen the most and which in some cases only show the group's own schools. In that debate it became very clear that the agreement between SKR and Friskolornas riksförbund regarding marketing is absolutely not being followed, and the minister pointed out then that it was not sufficient and that she was convinced that different legislation was needed.
I may find it a bit strange that today, once again, reference is made to the voluntary agreement between SKR and Friskolornas riksförbund when I ask what measures the minister intends to take. What requirements does the state intend to set when we see that the marketing continues to be misleading? The answer still appears to be "no measures".
Madam Speaker! The starting point when I prepared this interpellation was to try to find out how many resources are actually spent on marketing and advertising in schools. How much of the money intended to go to teachers, students, and teaching is instead spent on attracting new students to the school? The answer is that it is impossible to find out.
There are a number of articles from 2012 and 2014 where journalists have truly tried, or rather have been able to, obtain information about municipal schools and posed questions to independent schools. It was already established then, over ten years ago, that millions of kronor were spent in just one municipality on marketing and that the independent schools spent almost three times as much money on marketing as the municipal schools.
We do not know, therefore, how many millions are moved from the students' teaching and learning to school advertising. Why is that? Well, because independent schools are not covered by the principle of public access. Unfortunately, it does not look as if they will be in the future either.
It was good that the Minister for Education, after the massive criticism, let the investigation retain the mandate to present a principle of publicity. It is also good that the Minister for Education says that she wants the principle of publicity to also apply to the independent schools. The problem, my friends, is that it is not the Minister for Education who decides.
In Sunday's debate in Agenda, we heard Jimmie Åkesson say: I always decide everything; everyone understands that. Perhaps it was a bit ironic, but the laughter gets stuck a bit in one's throat when one realizes that it is actually true. For a few weeks ago, the Sweden Democrats' representative stood in the speaker's chair here and said roughly this: There is no reason to discuss the principle of public access at all; we agree on a principle of transparency, and that is how it is going to be.
How will it be then, Lotta Edholm? Is it the Liberals and the school minister who decide on the school and the proposals that are put forward, or is it Jimmie Åkesson or Patrick Reslow who always decide everything?
Patrick Reslow (SD)
Madam Speaker! I understand that Paula Örn is obsessed with this matter of who decides what. One can think about who decided when S was in power. Was it the Left Party or the Green Party, or who was it?
Paula Örn is now saying here that it is misleading information that is shared in the marketing. However, not a single concrete piece of evidence has been presented that the information should be misleading. On the contrary, all of us who have received the marketing material that was sent out in the autumn have been able to state that it is very factual and objective. It highlights what kind of education is conducted at the school, what opportunities the students have, what elective courses are available, and what opportunities there are to study abroad, as well as views from students who have attended there. This applies to both municipal and independent schools.
Here, the member is trying to make a big deal out of something that is not a big deal. It is important that one has the opportunity to profile oneself. I also think we should be honest enough to be able to distinguish between what is marketing and what is guidance. Guidance is something completely different. It is a form of support process for the individual, neutral and independent, where one points out the options, while marketing is about profiling a school. Not even the Social Democrats understand this difference.
Instead of making things up and conducting criticism in general, perhaps one should focus the criticism when it is warranted and on the actor, municipal or independent, that would be in breach of the Marketing Act.
Statsrådet Lotta Edholm (L)
Madam Speaker! As I have said before, it is enormously important that information about and marketing for a school can be trusted and contains what is important to know for young people and their parents. This is, of course, what the education contains and so on, but I also think that there are other parameters that are of interest.
It is also important that there is information that young people can see which is neutral. Skolverket has such. There are state independent websites that provide information about all upper secondary schools in Sweden. I believe it is important that those pages are marketed better than today so that one can compare and see if there are differences between what the schools state and what is visible on the independent sites. It is incredibly important.
Openness is important, but schools must also be able to talk about what they do, what objective they have and what the students think about their activities, regardless of whether it is a municipal school or an independent school. Therefore, the agreement between SKR and Friskolornas riksförbund is actually important, and it is naturally important that it is upheld.
Paula Örn (S)
Madam Speaker! I can recommend Member Reslow to listen to my and the Minister of Education's previous debate regarding the school choice pages. The whole point with it is that one does not distinguish between guidance and marketing. They call the page snackamedsyv.se, which leads the students to believe that it is about guidance when it is actually about marketing of the group's schools.
I agree that the principles contained in the agreement are very important. What is the problem—and I actually believe that the school minister and I agree on this—is that it is not being followed. It is a problem that it is completely toothless, for example, if we take the concrete case that one says that one has qualified teachers when one de facto does not have them.
I also think it becomes clear in this debate, and I welcome that, that I and the Minister for Education have a significantly more similar view on education policy, on our independent schools, and on the measures that actually need to be taken than the Sweden Democrats and Patrick Reslow do.
The Minister for Education is welcome at any time to cooperate with the Social Democrats instead, so that the policy she presents here and the concern we share over the deficiencies in this system can actually be something we can resolve. We could, after all, agree to settle for the state-run independent websites where there is neutral and truthful information that the kids can access. Even my daughter has received those brochures that Patrick Reslow talks about during the year, and I do not share his view of the objectivity in all of them.
Wouldn't it be better if we did something about this together, Lotta Edholm?
Statsrådet Lotta Edholm (L)
Madam Speaker! There are unhealthy drivers in the independent school system. I believe most of us agree on this. That is why we have two investigations that are currently working on this. These are, on the one hand, the independent school investigation, and on the other hand, the investigation into a national school fee norm, where the directives contain many proposals that will significantly tighten the requirements on independent schools and significantly reduce the possibilities of taking out profit, especially when operating an activity that does not maintain a good quality. There are also possibilities, for example, for the reclamation of school fees in cases of criminal activity. There will also be possibilities for compulsory management and so on.
It is clear that all of this in total, together with the investigation into a national school fee norm, which means that the state takes a significantly greater responsibility for our national school system than today, also reduces the incentives when it comes to marketing of schools. It becomes significantly less interesting to market inaccuracies than it can be today.
At the same time, I want to point out that it is also important that there is independent information that does not favor either the municipal or the independent. Such information should be provided to young people and their parents so that they can make a well-balanced choice when the time comes - a choice that is very important for many children and young people.
Source: The Swedish Parliament. The speeches come from the open data of the Riksdag, translated into English by AI, which may contain errors.