Swedish Lessons: What can we learn from the Swedish Free School Experiment?
On 7 Feb the Anti-Academies Alliance and SERTUC will hold a joint education conference. The key note speaker has now been confirmed as Linda Norrby, senior officer of Swedish teaching union Lärarförbundet.
Sweden was an early adopter of for-profit education and has been cited by Michael Gove as an inspiration for some of his reforms. It’s from Sweden that he took the idea of free schools.
But 10,000 children were left without school places in Sweden last year when one of the country’s biggest free school operators, J B Education, was forced to close after its investors suffered heavy financial losses in the global recession.
And Sweden has seen its place in the international PISA tables slide – it is now below average in reading, Science and Maths. The recently elected coalition government in Sweden have now said that they will be removing the profit motive from education.
Welcoming the announcement of Linda Norrby’s key note speech Bridget Chapman, chair of the Anti-Academies Alliance, said:
The introduction of the profit-motive into the Swedish education system has been deeply problematic and has lead to a reduction in standards. We want to learn some lessons from Sweden before the same thing happens here. Our children deserve better.
Ends.
To book your place at the conference email sertuc@tuc.org.uk or call 020 7467 1220
For more information please call Bridget Chapman 07941 043 478 or email bridgetlchapman@yahoo.co.uk
