Response to interpellations 2024/25:228 and 229 on discrimination of students in school
Translated from Swedish by AI; the translation may contain errors. The Swedish text is the original.
Summary AI, written in advance
The debate concerns discrimination and safety in schools. L considers discrimination to be unacceptable 1 and that the government has already taken measures through investigations 2. L argues that the investigation should strengthen support and facilitate placement in smaller groups 1, as well as that schools need more regulations and stricter legislation 3. L emphasizes the importance of the Equality Ombudsman spreading knowledge about the vulnerability of Afro-Swedish students 4. V considers that the government's policy violates human rights 5 and creates an unsafe social climate for children 6. V argues that students with disabilities do not receive support in time due to cuts 7. V wants to tighten the legislation, allocate resources, and introduce equality data 8.
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! Nadja Awad and Daniel Riazat have asked me what school policy measures I intend to take in light of the information that has emerged regarding the school in the Equality Ombudsman's report on the occurrence of discrimination.
The Equality Ombudsman's report shows serious problems in Swedish schools. It is completely unacceptable that students are discriminated against. School shall be a safe and secure place for all students. Feeling safe and receiving the support one needs is a prerequisite for feeling well and thriving in school, but also for being able to participate in the teaching.
The government has therefore tasked a special investigator to propose measures to permanently improve safety and study in schools. The assignment includes, among other things, proposing measures that ensure zero tolerance prevails against all forms of harassment and offensive treatment, including bullying. It also includes proposing measures so that schools' work against bullying, harassment, and offensive treatment shall rest on a more systematic basis of scientific foundation and proven experience.
I also note that far too many students do not receive access to effective support measures in time. To address the problem, the school needs better conditions to meet the needs of every student. Therefore, the Inquiry on Improved Student Health (U 2024:01) has been tasked with submitting proposals that strengthen student health and to review the regulation of support measures in schools. The inquiry shall, among other things, submit proposals that mean it should become easier to place students in smaller, flexible teaching groups or to provide students with individual instruction.
In the budget proposal for 2025, a combined government grant for staffing reinforcements in schools is also proposed in order to, among other things, strengthen the schools' conditions to increase safety and study in school, relieve teachers, improve student health, and better meet students' needs for support. The Government proposes that the combined government grant, which shall replace existing government grants, be reinforced with 850 million kronor for 2025.
In addition to these measures, the government has decided on a large number of interventions to counter racism and discrimination, including in schools. Forum för levande historia carries out educational initiatives on different forms of racism through history and today, aimed at, among others, school staff. Statens skolverk has been tasked, together with Forum för levande historia, to further develop and follow up the tool for systematic work with democracy-strengthening interventions in, among other places, the school system to counter contemporary expressions of antisemitism and other forms of racism. Furthermore, the government has tasked Diskrimineringsombudsmannen to develop and disseminate knowledge about the vulnerability of Afro-Swedish students to racism and discrimination in primary school and upper secondary school.
Students should be able to go to school filled with anticipation, not with a lump in their stomach due to fear or anxiety. Discrimination and racism do not belong in Swedish schools.
Nadja Awad (V)
Mr. Speaker! I thank Minister for Education Lotta Edholm for the answer.
I am very pleased that the Minister for Education began their interpellation answer by stating that it is completely unacceptable for students to be discriminated against and that the Equality Ombudsman's report shows serious problems in Swedish schools.
What I will bring up in my first speech may be perceived as irrelevant. But it is connected to today's debate on discrimination and upholding people's rights, which is that the government that is to tackle discrimination within Swedish schools should also be a government that keeps the promise to ensure that human rights are upheld in Sweden.
Mr. Speaker! This debate is so extremely absurd to me in a way, that I stand here and demand answers from the government on how it intends to stop the discrimination of the most vulnerable children and young people in Swedish schools so that there are no obstacles to accessing their human rights.
I myself and very many others in Sweden experience that this right-wing government often violates our most fundamental human rights. This applies to how people are spoken about, how people are valued, and what kind of policy it is that they are pursuing.
There are very many today who are not doing well. There are many who feel hopelessness and simply feel very afraid about where the societal development is heading. I speak for everyone in Sweden who since the 2022 election has experienced that this government concludes that there is a difference between people and people.
How can we rely on the government's work against discrimination and for people's rights when visitation zones are established in the suburbs, when the government wants to develop a reporting society in Sweden, when Sweden's Prime Minister makes a distinction between Muslims and Jews, and when a clear distinction is made between Palestinians and Israelis and between Palestinians and Ukrainians? How do you think it feels as a Muslim, which I am, to hear how the government talks about Muslims and Islam, where the Deputy Prime Minister uses Muslims as a political punching bag? How do you think it feels when the government allows its largest government support, Sverigedemokraterna, to totally conduct a witch hunt on Muslims and Islam? How do you think it feels to hear those who have immigrated or moved to Sweden portrayed as lazy, dangerous, potential criminals, because it is a success story for the government to make it harder for people to come to Sweden? The government doesn't even want to stop the terror state Israel's genocide, apartheid, and occupation in Palestine.
All this that I have mentioned now affects how our children and young people are met in society and how children and young people are treated in school, where they spend the largest part of their time. It also affects their self-image and how they feel when their elected representatives speak so poorly about them.
In what way am I and everyone else listening to us in the chamber or out in society supposed to believe that this government values anti-discrimination work and human rights so highly that they genuinely want to stop discrimination in society and, for example, in schools?
Therefore, I want to begin the debate by asking Minister for Education Lotta Edholm and the government: Does the minister and the government consider themselves to be defenders of our fundamental human rights?
Daniel Riazat (V)
Mr. Speaker! I want to begin by agreeing with everything that my colleague Nadja Awad has said from the rostrum.
I submitted an interpellation regarding the situation of Afro-Swedish children in the Swedish school and the risk of discrimination based on the Discrimination Ombudsman's report released this week. This is far from the first report showing that racism is a major societal problem and that it also occurs to a large extent in school. It is not the first report that says Afro-Swedish children have an extra bad situation when it comes to being subjected to discrimination in the Swedish school.
The Friends Foundation has year after year said that racism is the greatest basis for discrimination in the Swedish school. Save the Children has year after year produced reports showing that racism is the greatest discrimination that occurs in school. It occurs between students, it occurs from staff towards students and it occurs from students towards staff.
I asked this question last week to Prime Minister Ulf Kristersson in light of the Equality Ombudsman's report: I wonder if Ulf Kristersson and his right-wing government have a plan to ensure that Sweden will follow international laws regarding discrimination and thereby ensure that all Afro-Swedish, Jewish, and Muslim children who are subjected to racism will never have to be subjected to it in the future. Then the answer was: It happens that I seriously question the left's honest motives in its anti-racism rhetoric. Last year, some people did everything they could to humiliate and mock Muslims by burning the Quran. Even though it was legal, I said time and again: Don't do it! Then there was no one who asked if I did not take antisemitism seriously. Now I say: Stop with your antisemitic faces! Stop saying that the state of Israel has no right to exist and that Jews are responsible for all the world's misery! Now, instead, I am repeatedly asked if I am not concerned about Islamophobia. It is such hypocrisy.
I had, therefore, asked a question about afrophobia in schools, and this was the answer from the Prime Minister. The question of afrophobia in Swedish schools is, therefore, not even being addressed by the government.
The Minister for Education has been better at that, I must say. In the answer, there is nevertheless an acknowledgment that this is a problem. Examples of measures that the government has taken are also highlighted. I would then just like to go through those three measures.
The first concerns the mandate of Forum för levande historia. This mandate has existed for a long time. It was not this government that gave it. But racism continues nonetheless in the Swedish school.
The second question concerns the fact that the Equality Ombudsman has been tasked with developing and spreading knowledge about the vulnerability of Afro-Swedish students to racism - great. Therefore, DO has now also released this report. But what is being done about this? The third question is how one can, with credibility, speak about how the government stands up against discrimination and racism when this entire government base rests on votes from a party founded in Nazism. It is a party whose history consists of violating people because of their so-called race or whether one has a disability or not. How can one seriously mean that that party and that government can be considered credible in this matter?
The fact is that the only representative for the bourgeois parties who does not base their mandate on the right-wing extremists is the Speaker Andreas Norlén, who has received votes from everyone in this Riksdag.
Statsrådet Lotta Edholm (L)
Mr. Speaker! As I said in my response to the interpellation, it is about several different things to address the major problems that Swedish schools have.
The report is serious in many different ways. The Equality Ombudsman has therefore been tasked with developing and spreading knowledge about the vulnerability of Afro-Swedish students specifically regarding discrimination and pure racism in primary school and upper secondary school. This work also includes compiling and analyzing the reports that come in, so that a good perception of reality is obtained. But one must also conduct dialogues with representatives of civil society on these issues.
I think it is an important task. But it is also important with a task that changes the legislation in a number of different areas. There are two large investigations that concern this.
One is the Inquiry into safety and study environment. We have schools that are far too rowdy and where students are exposed to bullying, discrimination, and racism, and the schools are simply not good enough at handling this.
The second is the major investigation on student health. I mean that we must, to a greater extent, have a student health where we know that it includes different staff categories, for example, but also that students actually receive special support much earlier than today. One must remember that some of the students who behave the worst are also students who often have quite large needs for special support to cope in school.
A long series of measures are being taken now, but I think the assignment to the Equality Ombudsman is important to create a picture and be able to provide schools with tools on how to work in these issues. Bullying, racism and discrimination do not belong in Swedish schools.
Nadja Awad (V)
Mr. Speaker! I would like to go into a bit more specifically on the various proposals for measures that the Equality Ombudsman raises in the annual report on discrimination.
Educational providers shall, according to the Discrimination Act, have guidelines and routines for the operations in order to prevent harassment. As stated in the report, however, schools do not always follow these routines and guidelines. It also occurs that schools fail in their duty to investigate and address harassment. This appears both in reports to DO and in dialogues with organizations in civil society.
DO has also received a number of reports from school staff that principals or school owners do not take reports of discrimination seriously, regardless of whether it concerns Afro-Swedish students or students with disabilities. In DO's dialogue with representatives from civil society organizations, it is also stated that principals act as a bottleneck for reports of discrimination, so that the reports never reach the school's owner. This is in total contradiction with the school's reporting obligation according to the Education Act.
My first question is in what way the government will ensure that schools follow the Discrimination Act. Here, it is important that the government introduces equality data. We need, like two-thirds of the world's countries, to receive information on how different grounds of discrimination are distributed in the population and how they interact with each other, so that we gain knowledge about the occurrence and effects of discrimination. My second question is therefore how the government views equality data and on introducing it.
Educational initiatives by Forum för levande historia and the Equality Ombudsman are good for spreading knowledge about racism and discrimination, especially regarding the vulnerability of Afro-Swedish students to racism and discrimination in primary and secondary schools, but how should this be followed up? Skolverket should be tasked with developing a concrete action plan regarding schools' work against racism, and Skolinspektionen should, as part of its ordinary inspection mandate, be tasked with following up on schools' work against racism. My third question is how the government views this.
Several government inquiries have actually proposed that the School Inspectorate should also be responsible for handling harassment in schools based on the grounds of discrimination. One question is whether even this is something that can be reviewed.
Students with disabilities do not get access to effective support measures in time - or at all. To address this problem, the school needs better conditions to meet every student. As the Minister for Education knows, however, I have in many previous debates with her wondered how it is to be possible when there are cuts in schools across the country. These are the largest cuts in 30 years. The government's - what is it - 850 million kronor for staff reinforcements in schools is nothing when the schools collectively have billions in deficit. Staff lose their jobs, student groups become larger, and support measures are not implemented in time. How is this to increase safety? How is this to relieve teachers and improve student health? I want an answer to that.
It is also clear from the School Inspectorate's reviews that there is insufficient knowledge on how teaching can be designed so that it works well for students with neuropsychiatric functional impairments such as ADHD and autism. What is the Minister for Education's view on appointing an inquiry that evaluates and proposes areas for development regarding the school's competence regarding neuropsychiatric functional impairments?
Daniel Riazat (V)
Mr. Speaker! I want to continue from where I was in my previous speech. We thus have a situation where different organizations, state authorities, civil society - as the Minister himself mentioned - and different bodies have looked at this. They have come to exactly the same conclusion, namely that racism is a major social problem in Sweden and that the school is not an isolated island, which leads to racism also being a major problem in the school.
Vänsterpartiet has previously submitted proposals concerning giving Skolinspektionen various assignments to work against discrimination but also regarding equality data, as Nadja Awad mentioned earlier. In those cases, the government parties voted no.
The Equality Ombudsman writes very clearly that discrimination is still a major and serious problem in society. At least 500,000 people experience being discriminated against every year. When one has gone in and looked at this, one has in different ways grouped those who are most affected by discrimination. There, it could be observed that both students with disabilities and students with a foreign background fared poorly very often.
Speaking of the school not being an island isolated from the rest of society, one can ask how children in a country where the Prime Minister says that Islamophobia is not as dangerous as antisemitism are supposed to feel safe. How are children in a country where the government proposes identification laws, as in a number of authoritarian and non-democratic states, supposed to feel that they are safe and not exposed to discrimination? How are the children whose mother tongue instruction is currently being questioned supposed to feel at home in Sweden, when the largest party in the government coalition says that children should not be allowed to learn any mother tongue other than Swedish? Children watch a political debate from the Riksdag and hear this government talk about return grants and about establishing visitation zones where police are allowed to do a bit of what they want, a bit when they want, and a bit where they want - although we know that "where" is in the suburbs. How are those children supposed to feel that they are not exposed to discrimination?
I mean that the question of discrimination and afrophobia in schools is not a question that only concerns discrimination and afrophobia in schools. It is about the social climate that has been built up. Sweden went from absolutely not being perfect – we also have a dark history of racism against Sami people and many other groups – to nevertheless becoming a welfare society that stood up for equality and everyone's equal value. We became known for it all over the world and were seen as an example when it comes to the issue of anti-racism. We have gone from that to being a country where political representatives with one hand say that they have given a mandate to the Forum for Living History to work against racism, and with the other hand themselves institutionalize racism so that it becomes a part of this society.
It is not worthy of a country like Sweden to have politicians and a government that allows politics to rest on a party that has its roots in Nazism. It is clear that students are exposed to afrophobia, Islamophobia, and antisemitism in such a country.
Statsrådet Lotta Edholm (L)
Mr. Speaker! As I have pointed out a number of times now, racism and discrimination are, of course, completely unacceptable in Swedish schools. It is also quite obvious to anyone who reads the Education Act and the curricula that, according to the papers and documents, there is not only a task to counter racism and discrimination but also a task to act when it occurs.
Nadja Awad says that there are amounts of guidelines that are not followed. That is completely true. That is the case in many areas. My conclusion from this is that Swedish school needs more regulations. When parents step through the school's doors, they should know what a school is and that we have regulations that, for example, ensure that there is a well-functioning student health service, that teachers are educated and that they have knowledge of the Education Act, curricula, and so on.
I belong to those who believe that the school system is of national importance. We need a school system that holds together and that is based on laws and rules that are actually followed.
But it is also important to point out that there are gaps in the legislation we have. We need to tighten the legislation in a number of areas, not least when it comes to safety and study environments. Today, it is difficult for teachers to act when students, for example, subject others to harassment.
We have a problem. One of these interpellations concerns the discrimination of students with disabilities. It is clear that it is extremely serious that it occurs. But the school also has difficulty acting when it occurs.
I am completely convinced that the investigations currently working and which will present their proposals during the spring will provide answers to some of the questions being asked here in the chamber today.
Nadja Awad (V)
Mr. Speaker! Based on the debate with School Minister Lotta Edholm today, I feel that we agree on very much. We must stop the discrimination of Afro-Swedish students and of students with disabilities. This means that we must tighten the legislation. Resources need to be allocated. And relevant actors must be given additional mandates in order to be able to enable this.
I and my colleague Daniel Riazat have raised a number of examples that I believe the government should take further. We should, therefore, organize a joint effort to stop discrimination out in society. No child, no young person, and no student should be judged at the door when it is only about perceptions based on skin color, ethnicity, religion, or disability. We cannot have a society where people are judged in advance because of perceptions about them and where they are subordinated in a kind of hierarchy. So we cannot have that.
We have pointed out that schools do not follow the Discrimination Act. One should not be allowed to get away with that. Many different types of organizations out in society say that equality data is important. It is not only them who say it. Even the UN has criticized Sweden for not having introduced this. It is also about educational initiatives for the school's staff and about stopping cuts within Swedish schools so that support measures can be implemented in time.
These are concrete proposals for how discrimination in society can be stopped.
Daniel Riazat (V)
Mr. Speaker! I would like to thank the Minister for Education for the answers today. I also want to say that the Left Party shares the view that it is the state that should have the primary responsibility for the Swedish school system. On that point, we agree. The difference is that the Liberals think that different types of profit-making companies should be allowed to exist within that system. We believe that tax funds should go to what they are intended for and not to anything else.
But I shall stick to the subject. I want to inform the Minister of Education and others that the issue of racism and discrimination is not solely about safety and study environment. Even in the calmest classrooms and schools, racism and discrimination occur.
When it comes to the discrimination of Afro-Swedish children, Muslim children, Jewish children and Sámi children - it concerns all children who are subjected to different types of discrimination - it becomes wrong, I mean, to talk about this only as a broad safety issue. Because that is not what it is. It is not just about study environments.
What it is about is that thousands of students walk around with a knot in their stomachs because they are judged in different ways - by staff or other school students. It is about students losing faith in the future when they do not feel like a part of the community in our society. This is of course exacerbated by the fact that we have a government that is right-wing nationalist.
But the Minister for Education agrees with us that we should do something about this. I look forward to us being able to sit down together and talk about and come up with various measures. I look forward to the Minister for Education promising that it will not be the case that a certain party that the government relies on gets to decide that it may not happen. Racism must stop in schools now.
Statsrådet Lotta Edholm (L)
Mr. Speaker! I thank you for this very important debate.
It is unacceptable that students are subjected to discrimination regardless of the grounds for it. No student shall be discriminated against. But I still want to assert that this is also a matter of safety. If one is subjected to discrimination and racism, insecurity is probably one of the most important feelings that one has. One goes to school and cannot be completely sure that one will not be subjected to discrimination or racism. It is clear that it is the same type of feeling of insecurity that one gets if one is bullied for some other reason or is bullied without there even being any reason for the bullying.
I mean that the issue is important. I also mean that the government has now taken measures through a number of different investigations. It is also important with the mandate that the Equality Ombudsman has, to inform about this, to ensure that more knowledge is acquired, and so on.
Believe me! I take this issue very seriously.
Source: The Swedish Parliament. The speeches come from the open data of the Riksdag, translated into English by AI, which may contain errors.