State schools require a state you can trust

I was a student teacher when Göran Persson (S) pushed through the decision in 1989, and a newly qualified teacher at Virginska School — as it was known then, now Virginska Upper Secondary School — when the municipalisation took effect in 1991.

The parliamentary vote was taken on 8 December 1989, with a result of 162–157. From 1 January 1991, schools became the responsibility of the municipalities.

It was one of the greater mistakes in modern Swedish education policy.

We saw it coming

I was a student teacher and strongly sympathised with the protests. We saw the problems clearly.

Schools would become unequal. Resources and conditions would differ depending on which municipality you happened to live in. The status of the teaching profession would decline. Pupils with special needs would not receive the support they needed.

The National Union of Teachers had said exactly this as early as 1986 , in the document “Why teachers reject municipalisation”.

In October 1989, thousands of teachers marched to the Ministry of Education with hundreds of thousands of signatures. Then they went on strike for five weeks. It made no difference.

Much of what we feared came true.

It was deliberate

In his autobiography Min väg, mina val (2007), Göran Persson wrote about why the teachers had protested:

“The state connection gave them a higher status in relation to other municipal employees.”

It was deliberate, then. Status was to go down. It went down. And with it went the attractiveness of the teaching profession, then recruitment, and ultimately academic results.

My first classroom – before the storm

My teaching career had begun a little earlier, in the latter half of the 1980s. I had the opportunity to join a fascinating research project led by Börje Stålhammar , my methodology teacher at what was then the Örebro College of Music.

The project concerned the interaction between compulsory school and music school in a classroom environment and came to be called GRUMUS (Grundskola–Musikskola i samverkan / Compulsory School–Music School in Collaboration). It resulted in his 1995 doctoral thesis: Samspel. Grundskola–Musikskola i samverkan , defended at the University of Gothenburg.

A fine way to begin one’s teaching career, even before completing one’s training.

Time to re-nationalise?

A writer argues today in Nerikes Allehanda that it is time to bring schools back under state control. I agree, and I have written a response that you can read on NA .

But I want to raise a concern that is rarely mentioned in that debate.

State-run schools require a state you can trust.

The tool can be turned

A state-controlled school in a functioning democracy is worth its weight in gold. Equal, well-funded, free from the whims of local politics.

But the state may not always be benevolent. What happens if we get a government whose goal for schools is not education but conformity?

Look at Russia. Since the invasion of Ukraine in 2022, elements of “patriotic upbringing” in schools have increased markedly. Teachers have been urged to document and report activities, and pupils take part in ceremonies, uniformed events and organised demonstrations carrying state messages.

Vladimir Putin has also signed legislative changes strengthening the role of military and patriotic education in schools.

SVT showed as early as 2023 what it can look like from the inside , via a teacher who smuggled out documentation before fleeing the country.

A centralised school is a powerful tool. The question is who holds it.

Why liberalism is needed

Liberalism is the strongest guarantor of a school system that upholds the right to think freely and builds safeguards against a state that wishes to mould rather than educate.

But the question gnaws. Will the Liberals have the strength after the election?

A small party in a large coalition

In a democracy one must be prepared to compromise, but there are limits.

During this parliamentary term, the Liberals in government have had to concede on things I regard as fundamental. The cuts to the study associations are one such example.

In the 2024 budget, allocations were reduced by 250 million kronor. A total of one third will have disappeared by 2026 .

The study associations have carried popular education, free discourse and a democratic meeting culture for over a hundred years. That we should agree to cut there is something I cannot understand. It was not a large budget item, and for me it amounted to more symbolic politics than was actually required to balance the budget.

There is a pattern in history. States moving towards authoritarian rule tend early on to go after free popular education. Not always for budgetary reasons. But because independent meeting places where people learn to think and question are inconvenient to have around.

Sweden is not there. But the direction worries me.

Liberalism is needed, and all of us who believe in it need to be present. In government, the Liberals are the guarantor of sound education policy. That must remain the case, regardless of who they govern with. For my part, I focus on my local political work in Örebro municipality . Schools are, after all, still municipally run for now.