It was time for parent-teacher meetings at my children's school this week, and I was struck once again by how the format seemed designed to prevent any meaningful communication.
Most of the two 30-minute utvecklingssamtal – literally "development meetings" – was spent monotonously going through a survey my children had filled in, where they had to click a smiley face or a frowning face depending on how they felt about different aspects of school life. Both my children had clicked the fourth, semi-happy box, for all of the 20 or so questions, which to me indicates that they hadn't bothered reading the questions at all. But that didn't stop both teachers asking my children once again about every single one, with my children just saying "good", "ok", "fine" in a monotonous voice to every question.
While the teacher asked my children what their favourite or least favourite subject was (something I could have asked them at home), the teachers said nothing, or almost nothing, about how they were performing academically, and asked us nothing about how we felt as parents. We didn't see or discuss their marks. There was no feedback for the children.
It wasn't a complete waste of time. My daughter's teacher found a second to say she was pleased that she was hanging out with the new girl in the class. My son's said he spoke a lot in class and was good at maths. But it was mostly a waste of time. These were asides made after wading through the largely pointless child-led exercises. And rather than hold the meetings in the evening – as happens in most countries – the school ended lessons at lunchtime for a whole week to make space for them.
None of this is the teachers' fault. They are forced to follow a template designed by others – the National Agency for Education? Malmö municipality? Either way, it would be so much better to have 30 minutes of unstructured time where the teacher could say whatever struck them about the pupil's performance and the parents could ask what they liked.
Migration news
There was a puzzling development on work permits this week. The government announced in October that it planned to decide on exceptions to the work permit salary threshold itself, saying that it was not following the proposal from a government inquiry that the Migration Agency should be responsible for drawing up a list of exempted jobs.
But on Wednesday it seemed to reverse this, tasking the Migration Agency with drawing up a list of exempted jobs by March. We're still not sure whether this is a one-off, or whether the agency will also be responsible for updating the list in future.
There was also good news for international researchers and PhD candidates when the government, after more than a year's delay, pushed forward with plans to make it easier for them to get permanent residency and to leave the country for research trips.
Sweden's Labour Minister Johan Britz told us why he thinks a new Labour Migration agency should take over handling work permits from the Migration Agency.
We also published an opinion piece by Fereshteh Javani, founder of 'We are 4,700 workers', the campaign for those affected by the government's abolition of the track-change law, who highlighted the cruelty and unfairness of deporting people who have worked hard to establish themselves in Sweden, getting jobs and raising children.
In this week's Sweden in Focus extra podcast, you can also hear the Skellefteå-based entrepreneur Abhi Nag Balasubramanya talk about how the threat of expulsion is putting his hydroponic salad business at risk.
There have been several developments in EU migration, with the European Commission announcing a plan to overhaul the bloc's visa and deportations policy, and a plan to extend the 90-day rule for some non-EU workers. The India-EU trade agreement also has clauses on work permits for Indian nationals, which we plan to look into next week.
Finally, we looked into whether new UK rules mean children born to Brits in Europe are now required to have a UK passport to travel to the UK.
I've also done a long interview with Tomas Fridh, one of Sweden's most prominent immigration lawyers, who explained why the proposed law to revoke existing permanent residency permits is illegal for at least five reasons, and why he doesn't think it will ever be put before parliament for a vote. I'll publish that on Monday.
What else have we been writing about?
Sweden's Finance Minister Elisabeth Svantesson said on Tuesday that she was open to holding an inquiry into Sweden joining the euro in the next parliamentary term. Becky then looked into the historical reasons why Sweden hasn't joined the euro already, and what the positions of the parliamentary political parties are.
Sweden's rail company SJ has released its summer tickets early, which is good for those planning summer hiking trips to the far north. The government has also announced plans for a nationwide ban on mobile phones in school.
Readers working at the tech giant Ericsson expressed their sense of betrayal and concern as the company launches yet another round of layoffs, with many worrying that their residency status in Sweden will be at risk. Thanks to everyone who contributed to our survey.
The consensus seems to be that climate change has fallen down the political agenda in Sweden since Greta Thunberg won world attention with her school strikes in 2018. But a survey carried out by WWF in Sweden reported on Thursday that Swedish citizens increasingly want government to act.
After complaining that she was the victim of a media-led character assassination, the Sweden Democrat MP Katja Nyberg was removed from the positions she holds on several police and law-related "transparency/integrity councils" on a day when blood tests showed that she had had both alcohol and narcotics in her system when she was stopped by police on December 28th, 2025. Mandy Pipher gave the background to the story.
Mandy also wrote a Swedish Word of the Day, passa på, which means to seize the opportunity. I'm going to seize the opportunity to pack up my computer and take my kids to the gloriously eccentric Vellingeblomman garden centre, where we plan to pick out some new house plants.
Have a lovely weekend!
Richard
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