Swedish Education

I wrote the post Education Vouchers Work about how private schools are becoming very popular and successful in Sweden. So I was very interested to read this recent article in The Economist which provides more information about how the private schools actually go about teaching.

Here are the rules associated with starting and running a private school in Sweden:

• Anyone who meets basic standards can open a school and educate students at the state's expense.
• The state pays private schools the same amount per student as it pays public schools.
• Private schools must accept students on a first-come, first-served basis and cannot have any religious requirements or entrance exams.

Here are some ways that Kunskapsskolan (Knowledge Schools), a chain of private schools, have innovated:

• The entire syllabus and all materials are on their web portal.
• Each child spends 15 minutes a week with a tutor reviewing their progress and setting goals.
• Learning takes place in a mix of lectures, classes, independent and group study.
• Each student can work at his/her own level and spend time on subjects based on their interest.
• Each subject is divided into 35 steps; 25 steps earns a pass, 30 steps earns a merit, and 35 steps earns a distinction.
• Teachers get 7 weeks of vacation a year, and are expected to create lesson plans, etc. outside of the school semester in order to spend more face time with students.
• The school rents fields for sports and facilities for arts and crafts.

About 10% of Swedish children now go to a private school, up from a fraction of a percent 14 years ago. It's clearly working. I wish this kind of innovation was taking place in more countries.

Comments

[Stephen Downes]

I think that the article plays on the fact that people confuse Scandanavian countries with each other, and with the Sweden of the past with Sweden of today, which is currently under a conservative government.

Finland is well known to be successful in international testing. Sweden, by contrast, ranks closer to the U.S. in the middle of the pack and is dropping.

http://www.siteselection.com/ssinsider/snapshot/sf011210.htm

Given that the private schools are the major relevant distinction between Sweden and Finland, one can begin making attributions of cause...

[Graham Glass]

Hi Stephen,

As always, your comments are very welcome - thanks!

I checked out the info that you linked to, and you're right, Finland is doing great and Sweden is generally in the upper half of the pack but not as impressive as Finland.

However, this doesn't seem to be particularly relevant to my post, since 90% of Sweden is educated via their public school system and their ranking would therefore be dominated by performance of students going to public schools.

The key point of my post is that Swedish parents have a choice and are choosing private education over public education.

Here's the Wikipedia article about Kunskapsskolan if you're interested:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kunskapsskolan

I'm very impressed with some of their innovations, even the way that they teach History. So it doesn't surprise me that Swedish parents are choosing this system over the alternatives.

Cheers,
Graham