One of the government’s major school investments in the autumn budget will be to increase the grant that schools can apply for in order to strengthen equality and the development of knowledge. Until now, it has been called the Equality Grant and has been able to be applied for, for example, to afford to hire more staff.
Now it will change its name to Kunskapsbidraget, but the name change is primarily symbolic. The orientation does not change, and schools in socio-economically weaker areas will, just like today, receive more money than others.
What is the purpose of renaming?
– It’s about focusing on the skills in Swedish schools, but we are also making a large expansion of this contribution so that there will simply be more money for the school, says Lotta Edholm (L).
Increases more than inflation
Next year, the knowledge grant will increase from SEK 6.65 billion to SEK 7.5 billion, an increase of around 13 percent. But a large part of the so-called investment will at the same time be eaten up by inflation, which in August was 9 percent.
Isn’t it a bit misleading to say that you “bet” 850 million when inflation is so high?
– This is an investment that goes beyond inflation, it is not easy to achieve this when we have very high inflation. But the government has chosen to make this investment because it is important.
Concerns about cuts
The knowledge grant is the largest targeted grant to the school included in the budget. But even the general state grants that go to municipalities and regions have a big impact on the schools’ finances. Lotta Edholm cannot answer how big they will be in 2024.
– We also have an investment in the general state grants, but the finance minister will have to come back to that. But I think it is important that we have state grants that can actually only be used in the school world, because otherwise there is a great risk that they will be used for completely different activities.
The government’s autumn budget will be presented in its entirety on 20 September.