According to the school researcher’s calculations, a student who gets a grade of 17.5 at a municipal school would instead have gotten 18.6 at an independent school. Education Minister Mats Persson (L) says in Agenda that today’s school grades are not fair:
– We know that there is competition in the school system and that all schools are involved in this. There is pressure from parents who put pressure on teachers and we also know that there are independent schools that give satisfaction ratings. It is very, very serious.
“Reduce profitability”
The opposition believes that there has historically been a reluctance among the bourgeois parties to tackle the problems with “happiness ratings” because they are linked to profit.
– We have had a majority in Sweden’s Riksdag throughout that time, even when we have had government power, which does not want to do anything about these problems. The proposals we put forward to reduce the profitability of the independent schools have been passed by the Riksdag, says Åsa Vestlund (S), who is education policy spokesperson.
The Minister of Education agrees that the right-wing side should have tackled these problems earlier:
– I admit that my own party and the bourgeoisie have not taken this issue seriously enough. Now we are doing it and setting up an investigation to overcome these problems.
High ratings to earn money
He believes that independent schools are one of three parts in what has enabled higher grades as competitiveness:
– Also the fatal failure to shift responsibility from the state to the municipalities and parents who demand teachers to give higher grades,
Vestlund believes that for-profit schools must be pushed harder and does not think that the government’s investigation is doing this:
– It doesn’t get to the bottom of the driving force that exists in for-profit schools to simply display too high grades in order to make money that way.