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EDUCATION

Bankruptcy hits major Swedish free school firm

JB Education, one of Sweden's largest operators of publicly funded, privately managed free schools, announced on Tuesday it would declare bankruptcy.

Published: 12 June 2013 10:22 CEST
Bankruptcy hits major Swedish free school firm

A the end of May, JB Education sent shockwaves through Sweden’s free school establishment when it announced it would be quitting its primary and secondary school operations in Sweden due to a drop in the number of students.

On Tuesday night, the institution took things a step further, announcing in a statement that it would declare bankruptcy on Wednesday.

The firm, which had been a pioneer in Sweden’s free school movement, added that it would sell its adult education operations to Academedia, Sweden’s largest education company. Staff members within JB Education’s administrative roles have already been let go.

“We were hit by a drop in the number of upper-secondary school students over recent years; the numbers in our school almost halved,” CEO Ander Hultin told the TT news agency.

“The owners, Axcel, came to a point where became meaningless to continue.”

JB Education’s adult education operations boasted several thousand students across the country, within fields such as labour market education, business education, and occupational higher education.

“No student places will disappear,” Hultin added.

JB Education has managed to find new principals for 19 of its 23 secondary schools as well as all its elementary schools. According to Hultin, the company runs 31 upper secondary schools in Sweden. In February, JB announced it was withdrawing from seven of the schools.

JB Education, previously known as John Bauer Gymnasiet, opened its first school in Sweden in Jönköping, central Sweden, in 2000. It currently operates schools in 20 locations around the country.

TT/The Local/og

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EDUCATION

Sweden’s Social Democrats call for ban on new free schools

Sweden's opposition Social Democrats have called for a total ban on the establishment of new profit-making free schools, in a sign the party may be toughening its policies on profit-making in the welfare sector.

Published: 18 April 2024 16:09 CEST
Sweden's Social Democrats call for ban on new free schools

“We want the state to slam on the emergency brakes and bring in a ban on establishing [new schools],” the party’s leader, Magdalena Andersson, said at a press conference.

“We think the Swedish people should be making the decisions on the Swedish school system, and not big school corporations whose main driver is making a profit.” 

Almost a fifth of pupils in Sweden attend one of the country’s 3,900 primary and secondary “free schools”, first introduced in the country in the early 1990s. 

Even though three quarters of the schools are run by private companies on a for-profit basis, they are 100 percent state funded, with schools given money for each pupil. 

This system has come in for criticism in recent years, with profit-making schools blamed for increasing segregation, contributing to declining educational standards and for grade inflation. 

In the run-up to the 2022 election, Andersson called for a ban on the companies being able to distribute profits to their owners in the form of dividends, calling for all profits to be reinvested in the school system.  

READ ALSO: Sweden’s pioneering for-profit ‘free schools’ under fire 

Andersson said that the new ban on establishing free schools could be achieved by extending a law banning the establishment of religious free schools, brought in while they were in power, to cover all free schools. 

“It’s possible to use that legislation as a base and so develop this new law quite rapidly,” Andersson said, adding that this law would be the first step along the way to a total ban on profit-making schools in Sweden. 

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