New calculation of school fees should reduce injustice

Criticism has long been directed at the financing of the independent schools.

The calculations have been criticized for hitting students in the municipal schools unfairly because they receive too little money, according to, among others, the National Audit Office.

The lack of strict national regulations has also led to the municipalities calculating in different ways. School money can therefore differ by as much as SEK 70,000 for a student per year between two municipalities.

Last summer, the investigator Lena Holmdahl presented an investigation that suggested that municipalities should be able to deduct 6 percent of school fees for independent schools because the municipalities have additional costs.

But the investigation was thrown in the trash because the government didn't think it was good enough.

On Thursday, Education Minister Simona Mohamsson (L) received the last part of that investigation, this time with proposals for a new financing system for upper secondary schools.

The new part proposes that the state should demand that the municipalities really analyze the level of school money by developing a guiding standard for the resources for the school, writes investigator Lena Holmdahl in Expressen.

The Swedish National Agency for Education today has a national price list that municipalities can use to see how much the municipality must pay to a free school. The investigation suggests that it should be improved and function as a norm for the compensation for the upper secondary school.

At the same time, it is proposed that there be a redistribution of five percent from the grant schools receive for students with high merit values, to students with low merit values. Since municipal schools have a greater responsibility for ensuring that all children get a school place, the municipalities also have higher costs.

"In the primary school, we have calculated these additional costs at 6 percent and we therefore propose that the municipalities should annually deduct this from the grant to individual principals," writes Lena Holmdahl.

In the case of secondary schools, it does not look the same. The investigation therefore proposes that the municipality should be able to exempt certain upper secondary education from the deduction.

At the same time, it wants to make it possible for the municipality to make demands on independent high schools that receive exemptions and a higher grant, for example resource schools that need to have more teachers per student.

"Therefore, we propose that so-called conditional amounts be introduced. It gives the municipality the opportunity to give a larger contribution to schools that meet certain conditions," writes the investigator.