skolverket Archives • SwedeInternational

Teacher absolved by Swedish supreme court

school hallway — The teacher did not violate the student when he was removed from the hallway
pic: twenty20

It took three years to sort it, but the final verdict was “Not guilty.” When teacher Sören Claesson saw that a student was blocking the passage of students in a hall of the school, and refused to move, Sören put a wrestler’s grip on the student and moved him. For this, Claesson was accused of violating the student’s personal integrity, and the school was sued.

The case boiled down to whether or not the teacher was allowed to physically move the student. The plaintiff was Child and School Student representative, or BEO (Barn- och elevombudet). BEO had previously lost two earlier processes in the lower courts, but they chose to push it all the way to the Swedish supreme court. The reason, they said, was because although it had been previously ruled that teachers could in some cases use physical force to intervene in some situations, it had not been tried in the case of a student that had psychoneurological difficulties. Due to other aspects of personal integrity, only some teachers knew of the student’s diagnosis, and Claesson had not been informed.

SvD reported that, according the Teacher’s Union (Lärarförbundet), six of ten teachers are hesitant to get involved in a physical situation because they aren’t sure what rights they have. At the same time, teachers have a duty of supervision (tillsynsplikt) which doesn’t allow them to walk away from a situation. “It is good that we have now gotten a precedent-setting ruling (prejudicerande dom) and I hope that it means that teachers can feel more empowered” remarked the Union’s vice-chair Maria Rönn.

“Hopefully,” said Claesson, “this will lead to more teachers daring to get involved instead of putting on blinders.”

For more posts on schools, see
law interpretation erases school information
09 Jan. – religious schools targeted by the government
18 Dec. – a new school plan
27 sep. – no school news is good news
Mon. 19/8 – GDPR takes down school photos

law interpretation erases school information

Skolverket takes away school choice information — school choice blindfolded by law interpretation
pic: melbournechildpsychology.com

Swedish schools have come under a lot of critique over the last twenty years when school results have been lower, sometimes much lower, than was hoped. One of the tools parents and authorities have used to judge the performance of a school has been to check the statistics for each school. In a decision that came out today, the Swedish National Agency for Education must now make those statistics unavailable.

The statistics that have been available include how many students the school had, what percentage of the school’s teachers were certified and what percentage of the school’s students qualified for further studies. Apparently, there was a judgement earlier that came to the conclusion that these numbers were business secrets. This was not only because each student brings with them a certain amount of money, but also because school results are something the independent schools use to attract students. These statistics gave clues to the school’s economic stability. Therefore, the reasoning went, this was privileged information. Although this was originally only meant in regards to Swedish independent schools (friskolor), education agency head of analysis Eva Durhan announced that schools needed to have a level playing field and that it wouldn’t be fair that only public schools’ information would be available for scrutiny.

The upshot is that schools won’t be able to be compared in the school guide, making an educated choice of what school to attend more of a guessing game. Even the School Inspection Board won’t have any statistics to work with.

No one is particularly happy with this, reports SvD, and the national education agency is trying to find a workaround in order to supply both parents and students – but also government agencies – with this information. “Of course, we need to keep track of how things are going for our different schools” said Minister for Education Anna Ekström for DN: “We also need to know which children go to which schools so that they can pay the right resources to the schools. It is important that authorities can fulfill their tasks and that researchers and the general public have access to the information.”

“We understand that the National Agency for Education has to do what it has to do. But everyone agrees that another way has to be found. It is neither in our interests, nor in the interests of the independent schools, that parents can’t compare education institutions, says Per-Arne Andersson at the Swedish Association of Local Authorities and Regions (SKR).

Unfortunately, even with the best of intentions this will take a while. The government has asked both Statistics Sweden (SCB), and the National Agency for Education (Skolverket,) to find ways to resolve the situation. But, as Moderate party education spokesperson Kristina Axén Ohlin writes, the parliamentary education commission (utbildningsutskottet) wasn’t told anything. “We could have pushed through an initiative and forced a change in the law” she said. “The education agency will have a proposal in September but after that it will take at least six months. No state allowance or grade results will be seen during 2021.”

One possibility is that schools can voluntarily publish this information. Barring that, school information will be hard to come by.

18 Dec. – a new school plan

After the hullabaloo about scrapping Ancient History (those Romans and Greeks you learned about in school) from the Swedish school plan (läroplanen), the final version of the new school plan was presented to the government today. Although there are hopes it will be implemented as early as the beginning of the next school year, a more likely scenario is 2021.

Ancient history is back as required teaching in the middle school years, rest assured (see this post). Even the national anthem shall be mentioned, as well as the bible, and even a few common psalms. As a whole, there is to be a bigger focus on relaying facts in the early school years, leaving analysis and critical analysis to the later school years.

The major focus, however, is making the school plan, and grading, more transparent. The Swedish National Agency for Education, Skolverket, wants both students and their parents to better understand what is required for a certain grade. However, Skolverket emphasizes, the actual knowledge requirements for a grade have not been reduced in any way (SvD.se/läroplan).

How to squeeze in all the knowledge that needs to be taught in the current number of school hours is still the million dollar question. DN reports that the Swedish Association of Independent Schools (Friskolornas riksförbund) would like to see a change in the number of hours that is spent on each subject ( changes in the timplan), while the Confederation of Swedish Enterprise (Svensk Näringsliv) is reported to think that increasing the number of hours spent in school might be a reasonable solution.

Where the money to increase the hours of school would come from could perhaps be called the ten million dollar question. Minister for Education Anna Ekström has ducked just that question by DN, saying it was a question “for another context.”

The next step is that Skolverket‘s plan is approved, or not, by the government and its supporting Center and Liberal parties.

The current number of hours each subject has during elementary school years (1-9):

Swedish/Swedish as a second language: 1490
Mathematics: 1230
Social studies (samhällsorienterande ämnena – SO which includes geography, history, religion, civics): 885 hours
Science (naturorienterade ämnen – NO): 600
Physical Education (idrott): 600
English: 480
Shop (slöjd): 330
Music: 230
Art (bild): 230
Home economics (hem- och konsumentkunskap): 118
Students’ choice: 177

See skolverket.se.

27 sep. – no school news is good news

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.

Fri. 16/8 – an easier A?

The Swedish National Agency for Education (skolverket) announced today that they are looking to reformulate the current descriptions for what knowledge is required for each school subject grade. The Agency’s general director, Peter Fredriksson, made clear that the actual knowledge requirements (kunskapskrav) were not going to change, but that the wording was going to be reworked to make it easier for students, teachers and parents to understand. Another part of the reform aims to focus more on students’ factual knowledge, letting the current emphasis on analysis wait for later studies ().

In what would be truly light speed in parliamentary proceedings, the National Agency hopes to be able to roll out the changes by this time next year. The reason is not just that the current grading system has racked up complaints from all corners, but that the government is already in agreement with its coalition party the Greens, and its two cooperating parties, the Liberal and Center parties. The Liberal party has been gunning for taking on the school portfolio for a long time, though their hand in the previous curriculum was deemed to be fairly disastrous and an impetus to the fresh changes needed now. Schools were a priority for the previous Liberal Party leader Jan Björklund, but Sabuni’s view on the matter is unclear.

At any rate, no one thinks this is going to turn school results around, but it might make the grading system easier to understand, making happier students and voters.