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EDUCATION

Swedish pupils’ maths skills don’t add up

The majority of Swedish high-school students can't work out simple sums, researchers have warned after grading a math skill test taken by 1,500 pupils in Sweden. They were stumped that teachers had not raised the alarm.

Swedish pupils' maths skills don't add up
A Swedish student does her homework. File: Fredrik Sandberg/TT
 
The two researchers, one a university lecture and the other a former lecturer, said that the study was carried out on 1,500 first year high school students, when the pupils are on average 15 years old, in an unnamed central Sweden municipality.
 
"Far too many students have very poor knowledge when it comes to simple competencies like adding and multiplying basic fractions or figuring out percentage calculations," they wrote in an opinion piece in the Dagens Nyheter newspaper on Thursday.
 
They added that it seemed some Swedish pupils ground to a halt in math class after sixth grade.
 
"Understanding simple calculations is roughly the same in the eighth-grade as  in the sixth," the wrote. "Even during the first year of high school, half of the students had problems with basic calculations that they should have learned in middle school."
 
The researchers argued that this slow down in math skills probably meant that the student simply did not understand what they were being asked to learn in earlier grades. 
 
"It's remarkable. It makes you wonder how it's possible that a pupil can go year after year lacking basic maths skills without the teachers reacting."
 
Here are some of the questions from the testing process, followed by how many of the 1,500 students answered incorrectly.
 
7×8+5 (38 percent answered incorrectly)
What's 15 percent off a 720 kronor item? (54 percent were wrong)
Divide 0.16 by 4 (50 percent wrong)
Add four fifths and two thirds (44 percent wrong)

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EDUCATION

Inquiry calls for free after-school care for 6-9 year-olds in Sweden

Children between ages 6-9 years should be allowed admittance to after-school recreation centers free of charge, according to a report submitted to Sweden’s Minister of Education Lotta Edholm (L).

Inquiry calls for free after-school care for 6-9 year-olds in Sweden

“If this reform is implemented, after-school recreation centers will be accessible to the children who may have the greatest need for the activities,” said Kerstin Andersson, who was appointed to lead a government inquiry into expanding access to after-school recreation by the former Social Democrat government. 

More than half a million primary- and middle-school-aged children spend a large part of their school days and holidays in after-school centres.

But the right to after-school care is not freely available to all children. In most municipalities, it is conditional on the parent’s occupational status of working or studying. Thus, attendance varies and is significantly lower in areas where unemployment is high and family finances weak.

In this context, the previous government formally began to inquire into expanding rights to leisure. The report was recently handed over to Sweden’s education minister, Lotta Edholm, on Monday.

Andersson proposed that after-school activities should be made available free of charge to all children between the ages of six and nine in the same way that preschool has been for children between the ages of three and five. This would mean that children whose parents are unemployed, on parental leave or long-term sick leave will no longer be excluded. 

“The biggest benefit is that after-school recreation centres will be made available to all children,” Andersson said. “Today, participation is highest in areas with very good conditions, while it is lower in sparsely populated areas and in areas with socio-economic challenges.” 

Enforcing this proposal could cause a need for about 10,200 more places in after-school centre, would cost the state just over half a billion kronor a year, and would require more adults to work in after-school centres. 

Andersson recommends recruiting staff more broadly, and not insisting that so many staff are specialised after-school activities teachers, or fritidspedagod

“The Education Act states that qualified teachers are responsible for teaching, but that other staff may participate,” Andersson said. “This is sometimes interpreted as meaning that other staff may be used, but preferably not’. We propose that recognition be given to so-called ‘other staff’, and that they should be given a clear role in the work.”

She suggested that people who have studied in the “children’s teaching and recreational programmes” at gymnasium level,  people who have studied recreational training, and social educators might be used. 

“People trained to work with children can contribute with many different skills. Right now, it might be an uncertain work situation for many who work for a few months while the employer is looking for qualified teachers”, Andersson said. 

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