Swedish education privatisation failure

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Why does the privatisation of water matter?

Water privatisation is a terrifying phenomenon, says John Todd. The privatisation of the world’s water resources by multinational corporations results in increased costs and poorer service. Bottled water is also a threat to free water. Big businesses increasingly control access to clean water.

From daily The Morning Star in Britain:

We should take back our schools, says minister

Tuesday 10th December 2013

Swedish Education Minister admits the country’s failing privatised schools should have bee renationalised

Swedish Education Minister Jan Bjorklund admitted that his government should have renationalised the country’s failing privatised schools seven years ago.

State broadcaster Sveriges Television published figures on Monday showing that 61 per cent of Swedes thought the government should take over, while only 12 per cent disagreed.

Two decades into a controversial free-market experiment about a quarter of Sweden’s secondary school students now attend privately run schools.

And nearly half of them study at schools fully or partly owned by private equity firms.

The collapse of JB Education earlier this year, a firm owned by Danish private equity firm Axcel, cost almost 1,000 staff their jobs and left more than a billion kronor (£92 million) of debt to banks and suppliers, as well as abandoning 11,000 students.

With elections next year, politicians of all stripes are questioning the role of such firms, which are accused of putting profits first with practices like performance-based bonuses to staff and advertising in the capital Stockholm’s underground system.

“I think we have had too much blind faith that more private schools would guarantee greater educational quality,” said parliamentary education committee head and education spokesman for the ruling Moderate party Tomas Tobe.

The “Moderate party” are the conservatives in Sweden.

The opposition Green Party, which like the Moderates was a long-time supporter of privately run schools, issued a public apology in a Swedish paper last month saying: “forgive us, our policy led our schools astray.”

Last week’s international Pisa education rankings saw Sweden drop below the average for maths, reading and natural sciences across the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development.

The revelation has left many keen to reintroduce the nationalised schooling system that was abolished in 1991.

The Pisa results found that Sweden had fallen faster and harder than all other 32 countries measured and performed particularly badly in mathematics over a 10-year period.

The report prompted scathing criticism from Swedish teachers’ union Lararforbundet.

“We’re losing ground on all fronts and find ourselves in a very precarious position,” Lararforbundet president Eva-Lis Siren said.

“A lack of equality is the price Sweden has paid as a result of free choice.”It’s been easier to start an independent school than set up a hot-dog stand.”

SWEDISH politicians who inspired Michael Gove’s [British] schools revolution have turned their backs on education privateers — but stubborn Tories yesterday insisted the free-schools programme is a success: here.

CNN Panelist Kills School Privatization Arguments: here.

The International Youth and Students for Social Equality (Sri Lanka) urges workers and students to oppose the John Kotelawala National Defence University (KDU) bill presented by Sri Lanka’s defence minister to parliament. The legislation is a further move toward the privatisation of higher education and increased militarisation of the country: here.

Related articles

• Why Are Swedish Students Falling Behind?
• Swedes train with Nato on Russian border

• INSIGHT-Sweden rethinks pioneering school reforms, private equity under fire (uk.reuters.com)
• Sweden: Market-Based Reforms in Big Trouble (dianeravitch.net)
• Sweden proposes ban on fees for national boarding schools (theguardian.com)
• Swedish results fall abruptly as free school revolution falters (theguardian.com)
• Why Are Swedish Schools Falling Behind? (dianeravitch.net)
• Swedish Housing Surges to Unsafe Value as Debt Soars – Bloomberg (bloomberg.com)
• More privatisation of public education. (saveourschoolsnz.wordpress.com)
• We won’t be bullied into allowing our university to be privatised | Michael Segalov (theguardian.com)