Many municipalities are forced to make savings in primary schools, TV4 Nyheternas survey shows.
This applies, among other things, to student assistants, counselors and leisure clubs.
– It affects the students in the end, says teacher Maria Magnusson.
One of the schools affected is Frösåkersskolan, a primary school for grades 4 to 9, in Östhammar in Uppsala county. Maria Magnusson has been a primary school teacher for eleven years and it is not the first year there have been cuts in the school.
– Somewhere you juggle with your knees and make it work, you get used to how it is. But it’s a big strain sometimes, says Maria Magnusson.
“The situation is strained”
Municipality after municipality is forced to save more on primary schools due to an increasingly strained social economy. 44 percent of the 164 municipalities that responded to TV4 Nyhetern’s survey state that they need to make savings in primary schools this year.
– The situation is strained, precisely because in case of savings, peripheral services are reduced, which is work that must be done, and which ends up on those of us who are left. And that affects the students in the end, says Maria Magnusson.
Staff cuts in teachers, counsellors, student assistants and substitutes, but also fewer investments, are some of the savings measures mentioned in the survey.
In Östhammar, the municipality has terminated redundant school premises, and the recreational clubs are to be discontinued. The swimming school will also be made more efficient.
How does it feel to have to draw on stuff like this?
– If you put it in relation to the fact that the students don’t get to learn things, that they don’t get enough staff and teachers, then it’s not that difficult to make those choices. But it’s clear that with a better economy we wouldn’t have had to do that, it’s true. But all people in our society have to look after their house and we have to do that too, says Christina Williamsson Liw (M), chairman of the children’s and education board.
Maria Magnusson would have liked to see a national investment in the school – but still feels job satisfaction.
– It is the children, the students who do my job. You can focus on them when you have that time. That is what drives me in my profession, she says.