How the Swedish school curriculum could change in the future
One of the Swedish government’s goals for the country’s schools is to increase the number of hours children spend at school. Here’s a closer look at the proposed changes.
Who will it affect?
According to a new proposal by the Swedish National Agency for Education (Skolverket) written at the government’s request, this will affect children in lågstadiet, the stage of the Swedish school system similar to primary school or elementary school, for children aged around 6-10 years old.
It will also affect children of the same age in adapted schools and in Sámi schools, with some adaptations - for example, some of the extra hours for Swedish classes may be allocated to sign language classes or Sámi language classes instead.
How much longer will children be at school?
In total, children in lågstadiet will have an extra 178 hours of teaching per year. That’s a 10 percent increase in teaching time, meaning around 20 minutes extra time at school per day or just over an hour and a half per week.
Which subjects are getting more time?
The government specifically told Skolverket that it wanted extra teaching time to be allocated primarily to Swedish and maths, and these two subjects have been given the lion’s share of the new hours.
Swedish and Swedish as a second language classes will gain an extra 80 hours of teaching per year, while students will study an extra 48 hours of maths per year.
Ten hours a year per subject will be dedicated to art, sports, music, woodwork and technology, in order to provide a balance between theoretical and practical subjects.
“If teaching becomes too theoretical, the increase [in teaching hours] could mean fewer students have enough energy for longer school days,” Skolverket writes in its report.
Here’s how school hours for all of grundskola, the nine year obligatory schooling for all children until the year they turn 16, would be allocated under the new proposal:
What will the extra Swedish and maths hours be used for?
The new hours in these subjects will be used primarily for teaching children to read, write and count at an early age, with more hours going to Swedish as improved reading and writing skills will also benefit children when studying other subjects, including maths.
This is similar to other European countries, according to Skolverket’s report, which dedicate the majority of teaching time in primary school to reading, writing and literature.
The most recent international comparison of year students’ reading ability, PIRLS 2021, showed that the reading ability of Swedish year four students dropped slightly more than the average for other EU and OECD countries in the five years leading up to the end of 2021.
“The number of Swedish students performing at or below a low level has increased, and the gap in results between the lowest and highest performing students is increasing. Extra hours for Swedish subjects can offer children further possibilities to improve and train their reading skills,” Skolverket writes.
Why aren’t some subjects getting more teaching time?
Other subjects, like NO (nature-oriented subjects, or science subjects) and SO (society or culture-oriented subjects, like history, citizenship and religion), as well as home economics and English are not getting any extra time.
The reasons for this vary between subjects. Home economics, for example, is usually taught later, starting in mellanstadiet, or year four. NO and SO subjects will be allocated more teaching time under a planned reform in autumn 2024, and Swedish children already have good levels of English, despite the number of teaching hours in primary school being lower in Sweden than in other countries.
What are the downsides of this proposal?
Firstly, more teaching time means more teachers, and Swedish schools are already struggling to find enough trained teachers to teach the current timetable.
According to Skolverket, Sweden already needs 2,300 teachers for years 1-3 to continue to provide the current level of teaching. Skolverket predicts meanwhile that the number of teachers in this age group will decrease by 1,500 from now until 2035, due primarily to smaller year groups.
“The coming need for trained teachers under this proposal means that the expected number of graduating teachers may not be sufficient, which could lead to an increased number of untrained teachers in the affected year groups,” Skolverket writes.
“If measures are not taken to teach more primary school teachers specialising in preschool class and years 1-3, this could lead to increased competition for trained teachers.”
Skolverket further writes that this could affect children with special needs, if teachers trained to work with these children are required to teach full-size classes instead.
“A lack of trained teachers could also mean that more teaching is carried out by untrained teachers, which could lead to worse results,” it continues, adding that it is “of the greatest importance” that this increase in teaching time is allocated sufficient funding, and that measures are taken to increase the number of trained primary teachers.
How will this affect children of immigrants in Sweden?
Many immigrants in Sweden who have children in Swedish schools will be aware of the concept of modersmålsundervisning, ‘mother-tongue teaching’, which is offered to students with another native language than Swedish. According to Skolverket, students with another native language than Swedish who attend these classes are more likely to get better results in school than those who don’t.
However, mother-tongue teaching often takes place outside the usual timetable and often at the end of the school day, meaning that these students already have longer school days than their peers, which means they are often tired, have other after-school activities or have less time to play with their friends.
If the school day becomes longer, Skolverket writes, some of these children may stop attending mother-tongue teaching classes altogether, which could affect their grades later on.
How much will it cost?
Teaching costs for Sweden’s ten years of obligatory schooling, which includes one year of förskoleklass (‘preschool class’) and nine years of grundskola, are around 88.8 billion kronor per academic year, with around 30 percent of this, or 25 billion kronor, spent on lågstadiet.
An increase of 178 hours per academic year for lågstadiet would be a ten percent increase, with “a very rough estimate” of increased costs therefore being around 2.5 billion kronor, Skolverket writes.
The extra teaching time would probably mean less time for after-school classes or fritids, as well as less time for mother-tongue education, which Skolverket expects would save around 0.5 billion kronor.
That gives an increased cost of around 2 billion kronor per academic year, not including additional costs for increased teacher training or any increased school costs for recruitment, classrooms or student healthcare provisions.
When would this come into force?
This is just a proposal from Skolverket so far written on request of the government, and this policy hasn’t yet been formally proposed by the government or voted on in parliament.
Skolverket does request either that this law is enacted at the same time as other reforms to the school timetable which will come into force in the autumn term of 2024, or alongside a future reform of Sweden’s schooling system to add an extra year of compulsory schooling.
If this isn’t possible, it requests at least one full academic year before the law comes into force, in order for schools to be able to plan ahead and recruit teachers.
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Who will it affect?
According to a new proposal by the Swedish National Agency for Education (Skolverket) written at the government’s request, this will affect children in lågstadiet, the stage of the Swedish school system similar to primary school or elementary school, for children aged around 6-10 years old.
It will also affect children of the same age in adapted schools and in Sámi schools, with some adaptations - for example, some of the extra hours for Swedish classes may be allocated to sign language classes or Sámi language classes instead.
How much longer will children be at school?
In total, children in lågstadiet will have an extra 178 hours of teaching per year. That’s a 10 percent increase in teaching time, meaning around 20 minutes extra time at school per day or just over an hour and a half per week.
Which subjects are getting more time?
The government specifically told Skolverket that it wanted extra teaching time to be allocated primarily to Swedish and maths, and these two subjects have been given the lion’s share of the new hours.
Swedish and Swedish as a second language classes will gain an extra 80 hours of teaching per year, while students will study an extra 48 hours of maths per year.
Ten hours a year per subject will be dedicated to art, sports, music, woodwork and technology, in order to provide a balance between theoretical and practical subjects.
“If teaching becomes too theoretical, the increase [in teaching hours] could mean fewer students have enough energy for longer school days,” Skolverket writes in its report.
Here’s how school hours for all of grundskola, the nine year obligatory schooling for all children until the year they turn 16, would be allocated under the new proposal:
What will the extra Swedish and maths hours be used for?
The new hours in these subjects will be used primarily for teaching children to read, write and count at an early age, with more hours going to Swedish as improved reading and writing skills will also benefit children when studying other subjects, including maths.
This is similar to other European countries, according to Skolverket’s report, which dedicate the majority of teaching time in primary school to reading, writing and literature.
The most recent international comparison of year students’ reading ability, PIRLS 2021, showed that the reading ability of Swedish year four students dropped slightly more than the average for other EU and OECD countries in the five years leading up to the end of 2021.
“The number of Swedish students performing at or below a low level has increased, and the gap in results between the lowest and highest performing students is increasing. Extra hours for Swedish subjects can offer children further possibilities to improve and train their reading skills,” Skolverket writes.
Why aren’t some subjects getting more teaching time?
Other subjects, like NO (nature-oriented subjects, or science subjects) and SO (society or culture-oriented subjects, like history, citizenship and religion), as well as home economics and English are not getting any extra time.
The reasons for this vary between subjects. Home economics, for example, is usually taught later, starting in mellanstadiet, or year four. NO and SO subjects will be allocated more teaching time under a planned reform in autumn 2024, and Swedish children already have good levels of English, despite the number of teaching hours in primary school being lower in Sweden than in other countries.
What are the downsides of this proposal?
Firstly, more teaching time means more teachers, and Swedish schools are already struggling to find enough trained teachers to teach the current timetable.
According to Skolverket, Sweden already needs 2,300 teachers for years 1-3 to continue to provide the current level of teaching. Skolverket predicts meanwhile that the number of teachers in this age group will decrease by 1,500 from now until 2035, due primarily to smaller year groups.
“The coming need for trained teachers under this proposal means that the expected number of graduating teachers may not be sufficient, which could lead to an increased number of untrained teachers in the affected year groups,” Skolverket writes.
“If measures are not taken to teach more primary school teachers specialising in preschool class and years 1-3, this could lead to increased competition for trained teachers.”
Skolverket further writes that this could affect children with special needs, if teachers trained to work with these children are required to teach full-size classes instead.
“A lack of trained teachers could also mean that more teaching is carried out by untrained teachers, which could lead to worse results,” it continues, adding that it is “of the greatest importance” that this increase in teaching time is allocated sufficient funding, and that measures are taken to increase the number of trained primary teachers.
How will this affect children of immigrants in Sweden?
Many immigrants in Sweden who have children in Swedish schools will be aware of the concept of modersmålsundervisning, ‘mother-tongue teaching’, which is offered to students with another native language than Swedish. According to Skolverket, students with another native language than Swedish who attend these classes are more likely to get better results in school than those who don’t.
However, mother-tongue teaching often takes place outside the usual timetable and often at the end of the school day, meaning that these students already have longer school days than their peers, which means they are often tired, have other after-school activities or have less time to play with their friends.
If the school day becomes longer, Skolverket writes, some of these children may stop attending mother-tongue teaching classes altogether, which could affect their grades later on.
How much will it cost?
Teaching costs for Sweden’s ten years of obligatory schooling, which includes one year of förskoleklass (‘preschool class’) and nine years of grundskola, are around 88.8 billion kronor per academic year, with around 30 percent of this, or 25 billion kronor, spent on lågstadiet.
An increase of 178 hours per academic year for lågstadiet would be a ten percent increase, with “a very rough estimate” of increased costs therefore being around 2.5 billion kronor, Skolverket writes.
The extra teaching time would probably mean less time for after-school classes or fritids, as well as less time for mother-tongue education, which Skolverket expects would save around 0.5 billion kronor.
That gives an increased cost of around 2 billion kronor per academic year, not including additional costs for increased teacher training or any increased school costs for recruitment, classrooms or student healthcare provisions.
When would this come into force?
This is just a proposal from Skolverket so far written on request of the government, and this policy hasn’t yet been formally proposed by the government or voted on in parliament.
Skolverket does request either that this law is enacted at the same time as other reforms to the school timetable which will come into force in the autumn term of 2024, or alongside a future reform of Sweden’s schooling system to add an extra year of compulsory schooling.
If this isn’t possible, it requests at least one full academic year before the law comes into force, in order for schools to be able to plan ahead and recruit teachers.
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