The OECD’s Pisa report is published this week. We still don’t know how Sweden has fared, but we know that in the wake of Pisa, there is always a debate with demands for quick solutions and reforms. The Swedish school has no use for that.
Of course, a school in Hammarkullen in Gothenburg, a sparsely populated school in Sorsele or a large school in Stockholm’s inner city with over 1,000 students have different needs and conditions. Half of Sweden’s schools have fewer than 200 students, a quarter have fewer than 100 students.
“Schools are run under very different conditions in all corners of Sweden. Safety, calm, and study tranquility must prevail everywhere,” said a school representative.
Schools are run under very different conditions in all corners of Sweden. Here are the challenges that SKR, which brings together all municipal school principals, believes that the national policy, together with the municipalities, should focus on:
1. To secure the equivalence
The school’s challenges are connected to the challenges that the whole society grapples with. The effects of residential segregation where exclusion, inequality, and the recruitment basis for crime need to be broken. The differences in society are increasing, and the school’s compensatory mission is getting bigger.
2. Good teaching – the protection against crime and hopelessness
The school prevents crime and promotes good mental health when full focus is placed on the school’s mission to promote knowledge and convey and anchor democratic values.
3. Teacher training that reaches the whole country
The state must correct the failed dimensioning of teacher education so that it meets the needs of the entire country. All students have the right to be taught by qualified teachers.
4. Digitization – more than a matter of screen time
Digital competence is a fundamental part of the school’s democratic mission. We don’t need more simplistic messages about screen time when we see that it’s completely different things that make a difference.
5. Only long-term work gives long-term results
How the school is governed and managed makes a difference. A well-functioning power chain where politicians, administration, principals, and teachers cooperate based on their respective roles provides stability and trust.
When the results of the latest Pisa survey are now presented, there is certainly a lot to learn. But there are actually not too many gears to pull in a survey. So, don’t panic over the Pisa results. Then the debate risks overturning more than helping.