“What has happened is that high school grades have in some ways been distorted to become a kind of commodity, lures with the aim of attracting prospective students,” he writes, pointing to an inspection by the School Inspectorate that showed repeated deviations at some schools between high school students’ course grades and their results on national tests.
As an example, Lars Strannegård mentions Campus Manilla in Stockholm, where “an astonishing 84 percent” had higher course grades than national exam grades in mathematics 3C.
About the same high-status school, DN reported on Wednesday that every fifth high school student is suspected of exam cheating.
The School of Economics is now questioning the fairness of the national admissions system. Lars Strannegård wonders if students with happiness ratings displace others from their rightful place.
The development has led to the School of Business and Economics considering abandoning the national admissions system and doing its own admissions, red flagging certain schools whose students may undergo special admissions tests and expanding diagnostic tests of students from schools that the School Inspectorate has noticed.
“Without trust in social institutions, meritocracy is endangered, and thus trust in democracy,” concludes Lars Strannegård in his debate contribution.