18,000 students left the ninth grade without complete grades and thus without a high school qualification last year. This corresponds to 15 percent of that cohort.
In order to be eligible for upper secondary school, a passing grade in mathematics, Swedish, English and five other subjects is required – something that every seventh student cannot manage today.
Sorting out too many
An F can hinder the student’s path to upper secondary school and, by extension, to working life.
Voices have been raised both within the National Teachers’ Union and within research to review the current grading system, which some believe is sorting out too many too early.
– If we want young people to learn a lot, we must have a climate where they are allowed to fail, says Alli Klapp, school researcher at the University of Gothenburg.
Hear more about the grade F in the clip.