Sweden’s ruling Social Democrats propose free school profit ban

At a press conference announcing the new welfare policies the party’s leadership plans to table at its November national meeting, Sweden’s education minister, Anna Ekström, said that it was time to make sure that the money that Sweden’s government spends on children’s education no longer goes as profit to private companies. 

“It means what we say, that we want to ban profits,” she said. “The needs of children and young people should be put above profit-making and the tax money we together put towards pupils should go to pupils and not to private profits.”  

Shares in the free school company Academedia plummeted almost 10 percent in the sake of the announcement, although its chief executive Marcus Strömberg stressed that he did not think the Social Democrats would ever be able to get their proposal through parliament.

“You have to remember that this is about political positioning,” he said. “I have a very hard time seeing that there is anyone who would like this to disappear because we are such an incredibly large sector.”