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EDUCATION

School holidays ‘bad for spelling and maths’

School holidays are a bad idea, at least when it comes to children's spelling and arithmetic in the short term, according to scientists in Austria.

School holidays ‘bad for spelling and maths’
Photo: Pezibear/Pixabay.com

A study by Graz University of 182 children aged 10-12 showed that after Austria's nine weeks of summer vacation, the children showed “significant falls” in these areas. It then took them up to nine weeks to recover.

“On the other hand their reading abilities improved during the break,” said psychologist Manuela Paechter, one of the authors of the study published this week.

This is perhaps because while children may spend their time on the beach reading, they are less likely to be writing or doing sums.

“How much time (children) spend doing cognitive activities during the vacation is therefore highly decisive,” she said. “All in all the study illustrates what an enormous role school plays in this.”

The study was published in the German-language scientific journal Psychologie in Erziehung und Unterricht (Psychology in Upbringing and Education).

Austria is above the European average when it comes to the length of school summer holidays, but pupils in Turkey, Estonia and Latvia have 13 weeks off, and in the United States they have at least 12 weeks. 

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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.

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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