The Swedish public school is in the news today. Then again, when is the Swedish public school not in the news?
Today’s news on the school front is threefold: school news from the Center party congress; school news on the curriculum front; and a computer malfunction that is currently causing hundreds upon hundreds of school computers to crash.
A blog at this same location yesterday, on the ongoing Center party congress, promised updates – so here’s an update. A motion to allow uncertified teachers to give school students a formal grade at the completion of a course lost. Not by much. The vote for allowing this was lost only because the congress was split on the issue and they tossed a coin to decide.
The Center party leadership was for allowing uncertified teachers to give out grades because, they argued, there aren’t enough certified teachers around. And the work uncertified teachers do should be shown official appreciation. Plus, they would only be allowed to do it if the school principal was ok with it.
On the other hand, people who were against the motion argued that it would depreciate the quality of school education even more, it would be insulting to teachers who actually put in all the work to get a degree, and would even jeopardize the trustworthiness of a grade given in this manner.
When the motion went to vote, the results were an even 245 for, and 245 against – hence the need for a coin toss. For the DN article, click here.
In a second bit of news, although this did come out a couple days ago, there’s a suggestion from Swedish National Agency for Education (Skolverket) to stop educating kids on ancient Rome and Greece because there just isn’t time in the school year. In the Swedish school, they argue, history begins after year 1700.
In Sweden’s defense, there is a huge uproar about this, and it isn’t likely to get pushed through. This time.
Finally, school computers across the country are dying, DN reports. It started last Wednesday, when the first reports of laptop death were circulated. Since then, 750 computers have reportedly been hit, and more are expected.
The problem is a faulty drive routine that causes computer failure when restarted. The company behind the drive, Fujitsu, is working the weekend (we assume) to fix the problem. New USB drives are being distributed, but there’s no fixed date for the problem’s eradication.
There just isn’t a lot of good school news out there. Sorry.