Response to interpellation 2024/25:496 on adult education in small municipalities

Utbildningsministern Johan Pehrson (L)

Madam Speaker! Linus Sköld has asked me how I intend to act so that people living in small municipalities in the future will have access to adult education.

I understand that the adjustments made to the grant to the study associations involve reprioritizations in the operations. The Government follows the development of non-formal education, among other things, through the reports that the Folkbildningsrådet submits to the Government.

I want to emphasize that for 2025, the state grant to the study associations amounts to 1.6 billion kronor and to the folk high schools approximately 2.4 billion kronor. In total, it amounts to approximately 4 billion kronor for the activities of folk education. It is a continued extensive state support to study associations and folk high schools all around the country. It is also important to point out the importance of the shared financing responsibility for folk education. This means that the state, the regions, the municipalities, the managers, and individuals have a shared responsibility to finance the activities of folk education.

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Linus Sköld (S)

Madam Speaker! I submitted my interpellation against the background that 96 percent of the local folk high school organizations, that is, the local offices of folk education, are disappearing. This is shown in a report that the Folkbildningsrådet has made regarding the consequences of the cuts.

If one looks a bit more closely at this review, one can see that in the cases where a study association has left an entire municipality, there is a direct correlation to the municipality's size. In over 10 percent of the cases, municipalities with fewer than 10,000 inhabitants have been completely left, while the corresponding figure is zero or only a few percent in municipalities with over 100,000 inhabitants. The larger the municipality is, the less vulnerable it is to the risk of being completely abandoned by the organizations of folk education.

I think this is serious. In small municipalities – not least in the inland of northern Norrland, where I live – study associations can be almost the only resource available for free and voluntary education and cultural experiences. Popular education, and study associations in particular, constitute an infrastructure, a nationwide network, with over 15,000 cooperative associations across the entire country.

The only state-funded activity that exists in every municipality besides study associations is Systembolaget. This is now being risked by the government. People's access to education, free and voluntary, which I believe is an ideal for a party like the Liberals, and people's access to cultural experiences are being risked, not least in the country's smallest municipalities.

I think it is worth asking Johan Pehrson: Does he think this is a desirable development, or does he intend to do something about it? Shall his downward journey through Folkbildningssverige continue, or shall he return to the drawing board, obey the Folkbildningsrådet's budget proposal, and suggest an increase of 150 million kronor to the study associations next year?

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Utbildningsministern Johan Pehrson (L)

Madam Speaker! Taking responsibility is also about making priorities, investing broadly in education, investing broadly in training, investing in libraries and ensuring that one supports the over 100,000 associations that exist all over Sweden, which engage in a multitude of things in the countryside, not least in very small municipalities, and which are part of creating what we all love – an active and dynamic civil society that can complement the public sector and complement the role of politics in a social construction and not least the business sector's.

Since the beginning of 2024, a responsible but gradual reduction of the state grant to study associations has been carried out in order to instead be able to partially prioritize folk high schools and other important education for adults and increase the possibility of empowerment and self-sufficiency so that people can realize new small and large dreams.

The state grant, i.e., the government grant, to the study associations is proposed to be extensive even going forward, but the state is not alone. It is not the Riksdag alone that decides on funding for the study associations. The state grant for this year, 2025, amounts to 1.6 billion kronor.

With this state grant, the study associations will be able to continue to jointly carry out a very important folk education activity that strengthens Swedish democracy and Swedish society, with great value for the participants. But it is correct that there will be effects, and I note them. I also have a dialogue with the Folkbildningsrådet and several study associations regarding these effects, which I follow very closely.

Of course, it would be good if study circles, something that is now memorialized as history but also as the future, could exist everywhere and be freely accessible to everyone. It would be absolutely fantastic. But now the money amounts to 1.6 billion kronor to the study associations from the state, and then there are other funders. It provides the conditions to conduct a good operation, but it is correct that it forces priorities.

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Linus Sköld (S)

Madam Speaker! When it comes to adult education activities, the government makes no priorities at all. The investment of 100 million kronor for folk high schools that was made about a year ago and which the Minister usually likes to return to has actually not been enough anywhere.

In the Folkbildningsrådet's report, the consequences for the folk high schools are analyzed. On average, the number of teaching positions at the folk high schools decreased by 8 percent between 2022 and 2023 and by 14 percent between 2022 and 2024. The cuts have thus also affected the folk high schools. Folk education is not prioritized at all by the government. That point must be clear.

When it comes to the primary consequences of the savings, three out of four responding study associations say that the main savings measure moving forward will be to issue notices of termination to staff. An equal number plan to reduce the number of premises if resources are insufficient. This follows the already large staff reductions and the death of rehearsal spaces that has spread like a plague across the country.

The government's policy in this area has dramatic consequences, and people's access to education and cultural experiences throughout the country is decreasing drastically. It then becomes extra ironic when the Minister for Education, who is responsible for these issues, belongs to a party that believes that adult education contributes to a high level of knowledge in society and that adult education should be strengthened and supported. If this is the minister's way of strengthening and supporting an activity, I would not want to be strengthened and supported by the minister, on the contrary.

This leads to closure and death, particularly for study associations. Two study associations have already resigned completely, and back home in Älvsbyn, it was only a few weeks or a month ago that all staff at the office were laid off.

I think that Johan Pehrson needs to answer the question of how he is going to strengthen the position of folkbildning. That is what his party thought he should do before the election. Now he has been given responsibility for those issues and has the power to strengthen the position of folkbildning. How is he going to do this while simultaneously making huge cuts to the operations?

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Utbildningsministern Johan Pehrson (L)

Madam Speaker! I am grateful for Linus Sköld's great interest in the Liberals' party program. I can recommend all listeners to read it. More should do so, I want to say for the record.

One must prioritize. The Liberals are an education and enlightenment party, but we are also forced to contend with parliamentary realities. From time to time, we need to compromise.

With this said, I want to return to what Linus Sköld said about the fact that the government, and in this case also the Sverigedemokraterna, who stand behind the budget, are not investing anything. There, I think he has a very careless attitude towards 4 billion kronor.

I understand that one can argue that there should be a higher allocation. It is a reasonable opinion, but one can have different views on this. For the Liberals, it is important to put together a coherent budget in the education area with broad initiatives on education. Here, the role of libraries, not least within schools, is completely central. Large initiatives are made there.

Through the support that is provided broadly to civil society and associations, we do everything in different ways so that a living community can be maintained. I understand that there is a frustration among the study associations, which would gladly like to have more money. I have great respect for this and for the fact that it is difficult to have to prioritize, but it is up to the study associations to prioritize which courses they should arrange and which are important for the citizens. They may also find forms of collaboration to have a proximity to the citizens and fulfill the mission.

For the study associations, it continues to be about just over 1.6 billion kronor this year, which, together with other funding, enables them to provide their important contribution to folk education.

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Linus Sköld (S)

Madam Speaker! Reading Johan Pehrson and the Liberals' party program can be recommended to voters. Then one sees what the Liberals said before the election and what they then did after the election. Johan Pehrson has uttered the winged words: One says one thing before the election and another thing after the election. That is exactly the conclusion one reaches if one looks at what the Liberals said about popular education before the election and what the Liberals are now doing with popular education.

Johan Pehrson is the one who handles the word "investment" sloppily. If a reduction of one-third of the entire operation constitutes an investment, it is a strange new language, at least for me. That is not what the word "investment" means, Johan Pehrson. It may happen that there is an expenditure item of 1.6 billion, but let us be honest that the appropriation when the minister is finished with it is one-third less than it was when the Liberals began.

In summary, it can be said that the Liberals went to the election on a platform of strengthening popular education, but then they formed a government with the Sweden Democrats. And now the Sweden Democrats have decided that the liberal minister shall make major cuts that will mean that people living in small municipalities in the country's rural areas will not have access to cultural experiences in nearly as great an extent as they had before Johan Pehrson decided to take on this responsibility and go into the Sweden Democrats' leash.

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Utbildningsministern Johan Pehrson (L)

Madam Speaker! Linus Sköld is talking about walking on a leash and about saying one thing before the election and something else afterwards.

The Social Democrats have never before demonstrated such an enormous ability as we have now seen in them when it comes to swinging their entire policy after an election. I am talking about what they stood for before the election compared to what they stand for now, i.e., 2025. Enormous changes have occurred.

The Liberals have, in the government, overhauled the entire school policy to strengthen the foundations and to get back the school and the education. It is about learning to read, write, and count as a young person, so that more people gain power over their own future.

I have never said anything else, Madam Speaker, than that the one who enters into a cooperation sometimes must prioritize. Sometimes one must give and take. But the Liberals have also, I want to say, been strongly critical of the situation that has existed within certain study associations, which we are now working intensively to rectify together with the Folkbildningsrådet. There have occurred cheating, errors, and outright fraud.

It would have been pleasant if the Social Democrats had done any of all this during the eight years they governed, but no, said Nicke. Absolutely nothing happened there.

We are now allocating a considerable sum for popular education for this year together with other funders. I have great respect for the fact that one might think the sum should be even higher. But if one looks at the collective educational initiative from this government – on education, libraries, and the vibrant association life in Sweden – it is anything but a decline. Enormous efforts are being made so that we can have a strong civil society. To all those who contribute to this, we owe a thank you.

The interpellations debate was hereby concluded.

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