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Of: TT
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Photo: Claudio Bresciani / TT
Education Minister Anna Ekström (S) at the press conference on Friday.
Sweden’s School Inspectorate will have greater opportunities to close schools that, despite warnings, are not up to scratch, according to a new proposal.
– Only serious players should have the chance to run a school in Sweden, says Education Minister Anna Ekström (S) at a press conference.
The proposal, which is now being submitted for consultation, targets stricter provisions in the Education Law to stop unscrupulous actors.
– It has been difficult to close schools with obvious deficiencies, says Anna Ekström.
The proposal has its background in one of the points of the January agreement, that is, the cooperation agreement between the ruling parties, the Center Party and the Liberals. The four parties have agreed that “they will increase the chances that the Swedish School Inspectorate will close schools with major deficiencies, both independent and municipal.”
Difficult to intervene
– The starting point is that the school is for the students and running a school in Sweden is a trust and that trust should be respected, says Anna Ekström.
Under the proposal, the Swedish School Inspectorate must be able to decide that a school needs to remedy a serious misconduct and be able to close the school even if the misconduct has been remedied. The same will apply to both municipal schools and independent schools.
– It has been difficult to close schools with obvious deficiencies, says Ekström.
Expanded opportunities
As the regulations look today, the Swedish School Inspectorate can withdraw the permit for independent schools with serious deficiencies. However, you cannot close a municipal school. What the Swedish School Inspectorate can do is decide on “state correction measures” in a municipal school. This means that the state (the Swedish school inspectorate) takes responsibility for the school until it is operational again. This has happened once so far, in Botkyrka south of Stockholm.
Since 2010, the Swedish School Inspectorate has withdrawn the permit for some 30 independent schools.
The new provisions are proposed to go into effect on January 1, 2022.
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