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EDUCATION

Swedish teachers fail on homework: study

Swedish teachers have been given poor marks for failing to use homework properly and are trailing Nordic neighbours Finland in the classroom according to a new study.

Published: 15 October 2013 06:55 CEST
Swedish teachers fail on homework: study

The study revealed that Finnish teachers made better use of homework in the classroom setting. Sweden, Finland and Norway participated in the study where it was found that Finland put greater emphasis on homework that allowed pupils to mark and discuss their work in class.

However, students shouldn’t get too excited about the report’s findings as homework is here to stay according to Sweden’s Education Minister Jan Björklund.

“The solution is not to get rid of homework,” he told the Svenska Dagbladet (SvD) newspaper in reaction to the study.

In the report it states that Swedish teachers are using homework in an incorrect way by failing to follow it up adequately the next day. It was also suggested in the study that homework was sometimes used to fill in gaps when teachers were unable to teach during their classroom lessons.

“In Finland the homework activity in class is there to enhance learning which is a marked difference to Sweden and Norway,” said Liv Sissel Grønmo, a researcher at the University of Oslo.

Swedish teachers were given a poor grade for failing to follow up on mathematics homework in particular. Nine out of ten teachers in Finland who participated in the study were found to discuss maths homework regularly in class compared with just two in ten in Sweden.

“Homework is good when used properly but the problem is that it is often used as a way to make up for what they didn’t learn in class and that is wrong,” said Björklund.

He added that in order to solve the homework problem new directives are needed along with changes in the training of teachers.

The Local/pr

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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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