Compulsory Schooling in Sweden

Organisation
Overriding responsibility for public sector education in Sweden rests with the Government and Riksdag (Parliament). The State defines the overarching goals and guidelines for school activities, and the municipalities are responsible for putting them into effect.

The trend in Sweden’s education system has favoured maximum decentralisation of decision-making. At national level, nearly all education comes under the Ministry of Education and Science. Independent of the ministries are central administrative authorities, working in accordance with instructions issued by the Government, which for example define responsibilities and tasks.

The National Agency for Education (Skolverket) is the central administrative authority for the school sector. As such it is tasked with monitoring and evaluating the school system, supervising educational activities, and proposing and taking part in educational development measures. The Agency also arranges training programmes for head teachers and in-service training (INSET) for teachers and other school staff, as well as distributing scholarships for individual teacher in-service training. The Agency includes a field organisation of eleven regional offices.

Completion of compulsory schooling as provided in the Education Act is the joint responsibility of the municipalities and parents/guardians. Within the general scheme of national legislation, the municipalities have a very free hand in matters of educational administration.

Compulsory schools come under municipal mandatorship, and accordingly the municipalities incur the responsibilities of an employer towards school staff, as well as responsibility for teacher INSET. The municipalities acquired full responsibility for organising and implementing school activities in 1991, when State regulation of teaching appointments and headships was abolished.

Every municipality must have a school plan, adopted by the municipal council and showing how the municipal school system is to be structured and developed. In particular, the plan must indicate the measures to which the municipality pledges itself in pursuit of the national goals for the school sector. The individual school indicates in a local work plan how the goals are to be achieved and how activities are to be designed and organised. Teaching objectives are established by teacher and pupils together. Working methods are decided on the basis of these objectives and the pupils’ varying needs and aptitudes.

Compulsory school can be organised in various ways, as the mandator sees fit. There has to be a head teacher in charge of educational activity in a school. The head teacher must be closely familiar with everyday work in the school and must in particular endeavour to promote educational development.

Sami (Lapp) schools and "special schools" (i.e. schools for pupils with impaired hearing/ vision and physical disabilities) come under national mandatorship.

Entitlement to education
Schooling is compulsory for all children domiciled in Sweden. In other words, all children between the ages of 7 and 16 are both entitled and obliged to undergo education within the public sector school system (or at an independent school approved for compulsory schooling). The starting age for school has been variable since 1991, in such a way that parents have the option of enroling their children in the year of their sixth birthday, subject to municipal consent. As from 1st July 1997, municipalities will be obliged to accept all six-year-olds wishing to start school.

Pupils unable to attend regular compulsory school due to vision impairment, deafness, hearing impairment, speech impairment or intellectual handicap attend "special school" or compulsory school for the intellectually handicapped (särskola).

The Sami (Lapps) used to be the only clearly defined minority in Sweden with a separate language and culture. There are today about 17,000 Sami living in the north of Sweden, most of them fully assimilated by Swedish society. In addition to ordinary compulsory school, since 1962 the Sami have also been offered Sami school. Certain municipalities also offer integrated Sami education in ordinary compulsory schools.

Sweden also helps to maintain Swedish schools or Swedish instruction abroad in countries where there are large numbers of Swedes living and working. There are special State grants for the Swedish schools abroad.

In addition to municipal compulsory schools, there are also a small number of independent schools. These can be approved for compulsory schooling if they meet certain requirements laid down by the Riksdag and Government.

Parents and pupils shall have a free choice of municipal schools, and they can also opt for independent schools. The pupil’s municipality of residence has to pay for the pupil’s schooling, even if the pupil opts to attend a municipal school elsewhere or an independent school approved for compulsory schooling.

Education Act, curriculum and regulations
Education Act
Public sector schooling comes under the 1985 Education Act, passed by the Swedish Riksdag. The overriding national objectives of compulsory schooling are defined in the first chapter of this Act:

English has an undisputed position as compulsory first foreign language, usually from grade 3, but in some municipalities already in grade 1. Each school decides for itself when English teaching is to start, but the achievement requirement for the fifth year is the same for all pupils. The new timetable allows more time for courses in a second foreign language. Spanish has now been added to the previous options of German and French. Compulsory school pupils also have the possibility of taking a third foreign language.

The timetable gives compulsory schools the chance of establishing a profile of their own. Out of the total number of guaranteed teaching hours, 410 comprise the school’s own choice and may, with certain limitations, be applied to the teaching of one or more subjects. Music is a commonly chosen profile subject, but cultural studies, physical education, natural science and languages are also featured. It is the head teacher who decides how the scope for the school’s options is to be applied.

Compulsory School Ordinance
Over and above the general provisions of the Education Act, there are special Ordinances for the different types of compulsory school. The 1994 Compulsory School Ordinance contains provisions on compulsory schooling over and above those of the Education Act. This Ordinance lays down, for example, that there is to be a compulsory school curriculum, adopted by the Government.

Curriculum
The curriculum contains the overriding goals and guidelines of compulsory school. The goals are of two kinds:

The present syllabi came into force on 1st July 1995. Whereas their predecessors indicated the subject items to be covered in teaching, suitable teaching efforts and recommended selection of subject matter, these things are now left for the individual teacher to decide.

The syllabi are adopted by the Government. The Sami (Lappish) syllabi for Sami school, however, are adopted by the National Agency for Education, as are certain syllabi for special school and compulsory school for the intellectually handicapped.

The new curriculum, timetable and syllabi applying as from 1st July 1995 are to be fully implemented in all grades of compulsory school as from the 1997/98 school year. The previous compulsory school curriculum (Lgr 80) will continue to apply in grade 9 for the 1996/97 school year.

Evaluation
Evaluation of education outcome is one of the cornerstones of goal- and result- oriented schooling. It is very important for follow-up and evaluation to take place at both national and local levels. At national level, as stated earlier, follow-up and evaluation are the responsibilities of the National Agency for Education. The Education Act lays down that all municipalities are to observe and evaluate the compulsory school plan continuously. It is also the duty of municipalities to supply the particulars requested of them by national authorities concerning educational activities.

The school year
The school year is divided into two terms, autumn and spring, and comprises 40 weeks with not more than 190 and no fewer than 178 compulsory school days. Pupils can be excused from compulsory attendance in special circumstances, e.g. for religious festivals. The timetable can also be departed from as is found to be appropriate for "adjusted study programmes", for pupils who cannot cope with the standard curriculum.

The autumn term lasts from the end of August to the end of December, the spring term from the beginning of January to the beginning of June. The exact dates can vary from one municipality to another.

There have to be at least twelve days of holiday during the school year. These occur during both terms. The spring term includes two one-week holidays, namely the winter sports holiday in February/March and the Easter holiday.

Schools have a five-day week, from Monday to Friday. The week’s work has to be divided as evenly as possible between these five days. Schools decide for themselves how long the school day is to be, but it must not exceed eight hours for the older children and six hours for the youngest (in the first two grades). Teaching usually goes on all day, with a midday lunch break.

Funding
As from 1st January 1996, State grants to the municipalities take the form of a single, general grant, with the aid of which the municipalities are required to provide certain obligatory services. The State grant is intended to supplement the municipality’s own taxation revenue. The calculations underlying the State grant to the municipalities allow, among other things, for municipal expenditure on compulsory schooling.

The State funding received by the municipalities for education has absolutely no effect on school organisation. The municipalities decide for themselves how they are going to organise their schools. The State can intervene if a municipality defaults on its obligations under the Education Act.

Compulsory schooling is free of charge, and no payment can be charged for educational material, school lunches or school transport.

Municipal compulsory schools
Compulsory schools can be national, municipal or private (independent). About 98% of all pupils attend municipal compulsory schools.

Compulsory school is divided into nine grades (years). The former division of grades into junior, intermediate and senior levels was abolished on 1st July 1995. The new curriculum lays down the goals which must have been achieved by the end of the fifth and ninth years of school. This provides an opportunity for the national evaluation of school achievement.

Some schools in Sweden are a good deal larger or smaller than others. The big cities often have big schools, with up to 2,000 pupils each. Most of the smaller schools are in country areas. Increasing numbers of schools today are organising vertically integrated classes, combining children from different grades. A compulsory school can decide for itself how it is to be organised, how teaching is to be structured, how large the classes are to be and so on.

Many pupils receive the whole of their compulsory schooling in one and the same school, but it is also common for children to change schools when entering the seventh grade. Most often the pupils change class teachers in grade 4. In grades 1-6, the class teacher takes them for nearly all subjects, though they have special teachers for craft subjects, physical education, art education and music. The pupils in the senior grades are taught by a larger number of teachers, many of them specialising in two or three subjects.

Normally a pupil automatically moves up one class with each new school year, but a head teacher may decide against this, after consulting the pupil’s custodian. The head teacher may also decide to transfer a pupil to a higher class in mid-year, if the pupil is well able to cope and the custodian does not object.

More than 95% of compulsory school leavers go on to the three-year upper secondary school, which offers both vocational and academic programmes.

Assessment
A new system of marks, goal- and achievement-related, was introduced as from the autumn term of 1995. Starting in the spring term of grade 8, marks for school subjects are awarded on three levels: Passed (G), Passed with Distinction (VG), Passed with Exceptional Distinction (MVG). Pupils completing their compulsory schooling obtain a leaving certificate. This is issued when schooling is no longer compulsory for the pupil or when the ninth year of school has been satisfactorily completed. Final awards are based on nationally defined assessment criteria issued in conjunction with the courses for each subject. Comparability of assessment is achieved by means of national examinations.

A pupil failing to achieve Pass level in a subject receives no mark for it. Instead a written assessment is given which, among other things, may deal with the pupil’s aptitude for higher studies.

A leaving certificate can be supplemented. The Compulsory School Ordinance entitles a pupil to undergo examination for compulsory school awards. The examination can refer to the full compass of education or to one or more subjects included in it.

Remedial teaching
Under both the Education Act and the curriculum, schools are responsible for giving pupils with difficulties the help and support they need. It is, for example, the duty of schools to give all children a real chance of attaining the requirements for grades 5 and 9.

The State merely stipulates that support is to be given, not how, and so there can be a variety of supportive arrangements, e.g. various technical aids, pupil assistants for pupils with physical disabilities or vision impairment, specially trained teachers for pupils with hearing/vision impairment or physical disabilities, and remedial teaching.

School health care and pupil welfare
Under the Education Act, all pupils have to be offered school health care. This has to be provided by a school doctor and school nurse.

The purpose of school health care is to observe the pupils’ development, preserve and improve their mental and physical health, and encourage healthy living habits. This health care is intended to be mainly preventive, and it has to include health checks and elementary nursing. The pupils are entitled to school health care free of charge.

Overriding responsibility for pupil welfare rests with the head teacher. "Pupil welfare" comprises everything done to keep the pupils well and happy in school.

Home language instruction
Pupils speaking a language other than Swedish in their homes must be allowed to retain and develop that language. Through home language instruction in school they must have the opportunity of becoming bilingual and of finding out about their cultural background.

Home language can be taken as an alternative to a second foreign language over and above English (which is compulsory), as part of the pupil’s own option, the school’s own choice or outside the time table. Entitlement to home language instruction is basically limited to seven years if the instruction is provided outside the time table. This restriction does not apply to the Nordic languages.

Special schools
“Special schools” are run by the State for children and young persons who are prevented by vision impairment, deafness, hearing impairment or speech impairment from attending ordinary compulsory school. There are eight such schools in Sweden, most of them specialising in the teaching of deaf or hard-of-hearing pupils. The State pays all the pupils’ expenses, including boarding house accommodation and travel. The municipality provides compensation at a rate fixed by the Government, but this covers only a minor portion of the true cost.

The Swedish Agency for Special Education (Statens institut för handikappfrågor i skolan, SIH) is the central administrative authority for special schools, with the task of advising them on economic and legal matters of a general nature.

Special school admissions are decided by the mandator concerned. The question of admission can be raised by the child’s custodian or municipality of residence.

Special schooling comprises ten grades.

The new curriculum for compulsory schools applies to the whole of the school system. Compulsory school goals also apply to special schools, but instead of the compulsory school goals for Swedish and English, special goals apply where deaf and hard-of-hearing pupils are concerned. For certain subjects there are special syllabi for pupils with functional impairment which do not have any counterpart in regular education. Special schools are responsible for making every deaf or hard-of- hearing pupil bilingual on completion of their schooling, i.e. capable of reading sign language and Swedish, and of expressing thoughts and ideas in sign language and writing, as well as communicating in written English.

The new curriculum and syllabi express the goals of special schooling, but do not indicate how this knowledge is to be communicated. School managers (head teachers) and teaching staff have a very free hand in the planning of teaching and in their choice of working methods and teaching materials. Teaching is individualised and teaching groups are usually small.

The rules for moving up to the next class are the same in special schools as in ordinary compulsory schools.

Special schools have the same system of awards as ordinary compulsory schools (Passed, Passed with Distinction, Passed with Exceptional Distinction). Marks are awarded at the end of each term in grade 9 and at the end of the autumn term in grade 10. Final awards are made at the end of compulsory schooling. Pupils following the syllabi for compulsory school for the intellectually handicapped, however, are assessed by other criteria.

Compulsory school for the intellectually handicapped (Särskola)
Särskola is a special type of school for pupils prevented by intellectual handicap from attending ordinary compulsory school. Children and young persons are entitled to education in this type of school if they are unable to attend ordinary compulsory school because they are intellectually handicapped or have some comparable disability.

Teaching in compulsory school for intellectually handicapped must, as far as possible, correspond to that provided in ordinary compulsory schools and give the pupils an education appropriate to their aptitudes. Compulsory school for the intellectually handicapped is divided into basic school (grundsärskola) and training school (träningsskola). Basic school is for pupils who are considered capable of learning to read and write and of acquiring new knowledge through these skills. Training school is for those unable to assimilate instruction in basic school.

Pupils attending compulsory school for the intellectually handicapped have basically the same free choice of school as those attending ordinary compulsory schools. The school establishments can be municipal or independent.

As from 1st January 1996, compulsory school for the intellectually handicapped comes under municipal mandatorship. Because the number of pupils involved is relatively small and not all municipalities have a school of this kind, this may eventually result in more and more pupils being integrated in ordinary compulsory school classes.

Schooling for the intellectually handicapped is compulsory for nine years, with the option of a tenth, and comprises children between the ages of 7 and 16 (17).

The purpose of compulsory school for intellectually handicapped is to provide an education appropriate to each pupil’s aptitudes. The methodology used provides plentiful opportunities for achieving this. It is the pupils’ very different aptitudes for learning and the duty of the school to adapt instruction to each individual pupil that decide the selection of subject matter from the syllabi and the method employed. One of the most important tasks of the school is to equip the pupils properly for active everyday living and to prepare them for adult life.

As has already been made clear, the new curriculum applies to the whole of the compulsory school system. For intellectually handicapped pupils there are also special regulations, including a timetable specially designed for pupils in training school.

Pupils who have completed basic school must, on leaving school, be issued with a certificate showing the studies completed. If the pupil or custodian requests marks, assessments are given at the end of each term in grade 8 and at the end of the autumn term in grade 9. Marks are awarded for various subjects in relation to the requirements of the syllabi for compulsory school for the intellectually handicapped. The marks obtainable are Passed and Passed with Distinction.

Sami school
Sami (Lapp) children have since 1962 been able to choose between two forms of education: ordinary compulsory school or Sami school. In the north of Sweden since the 1983/84 school year, a number of municipal compulsory schools have also provided integrated Sami education. The Sami schools comprise only grades 1-6, whereas integrated Sami education continues all the way through compulsory school.

The spoken and teaching languages at the Sami school and for integrated Sami education are North Sami, Luleå Sami and South Sami. It is possible for more than one language variant to be taught at one and the same school. The current curriculum makes the Sami school responsible for its pupils, over and above the objectives of ordinary compulsory school, being familiar with the Sami cultural heritage and being able to speak, read and write Sami.

Sami school comes under the supervision of the National Agency for Education. The Sami School Board in Jokkmokk decides where Sami schools are to be operated. At present there are six national schools of this kind, each headed by a director of education who reports to the Sami School Board. A boarding home may be set up in conjunction with the Sami school, for the benefit of Sami youngsters not living close to a Sami school or to a school with integrated Sami education.

All the expenses of these schools, such as teachers’ salaries, pupil accommodation, school transport, premises and so on, are borne by the State. The pupil’s home municipality reimburses the State at a rate fixed by the Government and roughly corresponding to the cost of a pupil in ordinary compulsory school.

Independent schools
Sweden has relatively few independent schools. Frequently, schools of this kind have come into being as a result of parents and teachers joining forces on a common idea as to how school and teaching should be organised. A large proportion of independent schools are based on a particular educational method, the most prominent being the Montessori and Waldorf methods. There are also a number of independent schools whose teaching activities are based on religious belief.

A pupil may complete his or her compulsory schooling at an independent school if it has been approved for the purpose. Independent schools are examined and approved by the National Agency for Education. Approval is conditional among other things on the school providing knowledge and skills which, in nature and level, essentially correspond to those conferred by the ordinary compulsory school. In other respects too, the school must essentially conform to the general objectives of compulsory school.

Approved schools receive grants from the pupils’ home municipalities for their activities. The municipalities of residence are required to cover 75% of the average cost per pupil for every pupil attending an independent school. New funding rules were proposed by the Government in the spring of 1996.

Independent schools are allowed to charge fees. These have to be reasonable in relation to the school’s expenses, provided the expenses can be deemed reasonable for the activity.

Teacher training
The training of compulsory school teachers takes the form of a post-secondary programme lasting 3.5 or 4.5 years, depending on the speciality chosen. There are two specialities to choose from, one focusing on grades 1–7, and the other on teaching duties in grades 4-9.

Since January 1991, teachers have been municipal employees. The municipalities are responsible for staffing the schools with competent teachers who have been adequately trained for their duties.

To qualify for indefinite-term employment as a teacher in the public sector school system, the applicant must have a command of the Swedish language, unless special reasons are found for waiving this requirement, and must have the necessary insight into the regulations applying to the public sector school system. To be eligible for a teaching appointment, the applicant must also have undergone Swedish teacher training, majoring in the teaching to which the post refers, or else other, comparable teacher training in another Nordic country.

An exception is made if the applicant has instead completed other post-secondary education in order to obtain a teaching appointment. In cases of this kind, the National Agency for Higher Education must first have recognised the education as essentially corresponding to the teacher training in question.

If there are special reasons for hiring teachers but applicants with the education described above are not forthcoming, an appointment can still be made in certain cases. If the applicant has corresponding competence for the teaching intended and, moreover, there is reason to suppose that the applicant is suitable for teaching duties, the appointment can be made.

Teaching is still looked on as both an independent and a solitary job. However, the new curricula, stressing the role of the teacher as the pupils’ guide and stimuli from other sectors have encouraged developments in favour of working teams and closer co-operation in schools.

This fact sheet is part of SI’s information service. It can be used as background information on condition that the source is acknowledged.

October 1996
FS 39 u Em
ISSN 1101-6124


Fact Sheets on Sweden