About the Swedish Schools Inspectorate
The Swedish Schools Inspectorate is a government agency with the objective to ensure that all children and school students are provided with equal education of good quality in a safe environment.
We carry out school inspections and assess applications to establish independent schools and ensure that the schools comply with legislation and regulations.
The Swedish Schools Inspectorate also includes the Child and School Student Representative, BEO
The Child and School Student Representative (BEO) protects the rights of children and school students, and investigates reports of bullying and abusive behaviour in school. The BEO can also claim damages on behalf of children and school students who have been subjected to abusive behaviour and bullying.
More about The Swedish Schools Inspectorate
The Swedish Schools Inspectorate is an agency under the Swedish government. The agency is responsible for supervision and quality assurance in regard to preschools (primarily the municipal preschools), compulsory schools, upper secondary schools and the various forms of adult education.
University colleges and universities, however, have a different supervisory authority. The primary aim of the Swedish Schools Inspectorate is to contribute to school improvement and development. The overall goal is a school system where all children have equal rights to a good education and knowledge in a secure environment.
The agency is headed by a Director General appointed by the government; however, it is not a part of the Ministry of Education and Research, but an independent agency. The agency's commission is based on the Swedish Education Act, a special comission and on appropriation directions written by the government each year.
The Swedish Schools Inspectorate was formed as a separate agency in 2008. The agency's tasks were previously carried out by the Swedish National Agency for Education, which is still the normative and evaluating authority for the Swedish schools.
The Swedish Schools Inspectorate has approximately 450 employees at five locations around the country. The main office is in Stockholm.
The Swedish Schools Inspectorate also includes the Child and School Student Representative, a legal expert appointed by the government to investigate and make decisions in matters relating to offensive treatment of individual pupils. The Swedish Schools Inspectorate is responsible for the Child and School Student Representative's investigative resources.
Also connected to the Swedish Schools Inspectorate is the Board of Appeal for Education, which is a court-like authority that receives appeals from private individuals in regard to certain types of decisions concerning pupils in school. This authority receives its office resources from the Swedish Schools Inspectorate.
Mismanagement at a school
You can find information here if you feel there are problems at a school or a child or school student has been wrongly or badly treated.
Read more here
Talk with the preschool or school
- In the event of a problem at a preschool/school, you should raise the matter with a teacher, the principal or other staff. The principal has the responsibility to ensure that the children/school students receive the support they need. The principal is also the school head for teachers and staff at the preschool/school.
Use the complaint handling procedure of the school's principal organiser
- If you are dissatisfied with the principal's management, you should contact the principal organiser. The principal organiser is the municipality or the party that owns or is responsible for an independent school. The principal organiser has the responsibility to ensure that children and school students are provided with a good education and feel safe at school. The principal organiser must receive and investigate complaints.
- If you want to lodge a complaint with the principal organiser's complaint handling procedure, you can search for information on the school's website or the principal organiser's website. You can also ask for help from someone at the school.
Provide information to the Swedish Schools Inspectorate
If there are serious problems at a school and if the principal organiser does not address the problems, you can contact the Swedish Schools Inspectorate.
- We do not investigate all the information submitted but based on our assignment, we decide whether an investigation should be initiated and, if so, in what way.
- Whether or not we initiate an investigation is determined by our previous experience of the school, the principal organiser, and any other signals we have received. For example, it may be a question of something that emerged in school questionnaires with students, staff and guardians, our previous inspections, and other statistics available on the school.
- In order for the work of the Swedish Schools Inspectorate to be of benefit for as many school students as possible, we investigate more issues at school level but fewer with only links to individual children/school students. This means that even if a report received by the Swedish Schools Inspectorate concerns an individual school student, we may choose to investigate the report at school level.
- The Swedish Schools Inspectorate and Child and School Student Representative (BEO) investigate certain individual school student issues, such as a school student subjected to abusive behaviour, a school student’s extensive absenteeism, or if there are serious shortcomings at the school in terms of support. Before the Swedish Schools Inspectorate or BEO initiates an investigation, we conduct an assessment of whether state supervision is justified. This means that we examine what we already know about the school and the principal organiser and how the principal organiser deals with shortcomings.
- Even if we do not initiate an investigation, we are grateful for your information. Your reports may be used in different ways and are valuable to our supervisory work in order for us to build an overview of the school.
How we process your personal data
The principle of public access to official records
All information received will become so-called official documents. This means that everybody has the right to read them. The Swedish Schools Inspectorate does not disclose information that is covered by the obligation of professional secrecy. The Swedish Schools Inspectorate is also obliged to protect sensitive personal data against unauthorised access or use in accordance with the Data Protection Ordinance.
Responsibility for personal data
The Swedish Schools Inspectorate has responsibility for personal data in the processing of the personal data handled by the agency. When you contact us, the following processing of personal data may occur:
- Registration in our IT systems
- Forwarding to another government agency
- Handling within supervisory activities
- Preservation and archiving
For more information about our privacy policy and your rights as a data subject, see https://www.skolinspektionen.se/Om-oss/integritetspolicy/
The consequences of remote teaching during the Covid-19 pandemic in english.
The Swedish Schools Inspectorate has reviewed the impact of remote teaching on students’ learning and wellbeing during the pandemic. Here you read more.
The Covid-19 pandemic has meant great challenges for the entire school system and in particular for those students in years 7 to 9 of the compulsory school, the upper secondary school, and adult education who to a large degree have been instructed through remote teaching. The Swedish Schools Inspectorate has reviewed the impact of remote teaching on students’ learning and wellbeing during the pandemic.
The review shows that large parts of the mission of the school system have worked well in spite of the transition to remote teaching. Students and school staff have in many cases approached the challenges posed by the situation with great flexibility and a high level of commitment.
But in spite of all these efforts it has rarely been possible for remote teaching to offer the same conditions for learning and wellbeing as teaching on site in the school has done.
Principal observations
One important finding, applicable irrespective of school form, is that the consequences of remote teaching have been affected by:
- the degree of remote teaching,
- the institutions’ starting point for the transition to remote teaching,
- the quality of the implementation of remote teaching, and
- the extent to which it has been possible to gradually compensate the students.
The review also shows that students’ chances of reaching set goals have deteriorated and that their health has suffered because of the remote teaching.
Students’ chances of reaching set goals have deteriorated
For the majority of those students who received a significant degree of remote teaching, the situation has meant worse conditions for learning and knowledge development.
- Curriculum items and courses have usually been completed but students feel that they have learnt less
- Poorer quality of teaching in remote education giving poorer opportunities for learning
- Students’ domestic situation affects their ability to benefit from remote teaching
- Several schools lack a clear picture of students’ support needs and the impact of the teaching
- Difficult to work remotely on issues related to social values
- Awarding grades remotely has been a challenge for teachers.
Students’ health has deteriorated
Remote teaching has had a negative impact on both mental and physical health for many students.
- Stress, loneliness, and poorer lifestyles were common when teaching was delivered remotely
- The student health team has prinipally been reactive and focused on interventions benefitting individual students.
About the review
The review has been carried out at the request of the Government and is based on findings from eight remote inspections during the period February to September 2021. The majority of these have already been published as memoranda. The remote inspections have taken the form of a learning and forward-looking inspection and differ in several respects from the authority’s normal inspections.
The conclusions drawn by the Swedish Schools Inspectorate are based on observations at 426 reviewed schools. The material has been collected via telephone or digital interviews, surveys, and digital lesson observations.
The findings provide many important insights concerning the consequences of remote teaching, but do not present a nationally representative picture of the situation. The extent of the described consequences is largely dependent on the amount of remote teaching that students have been receiving. Other factors that should be considered are, for instance, increased student absenteeism and increased use of supply staff within the compulsory school.
This is what we have reviewed
The Swedish Schools Inspectorate has reviewed remote teaching carried out during the spring term of 2021 in years 7 to 9 of the compulsory school, the upper secondary school and municipal adult education, as a result of the Covid-19 pandemic.
The purpose has been to review the consequences of remote teaching for students’ chances of reaching set goals and for their health, during the Covid-19 pandemic.
Contact information to the Swedish Schools Inspectorate
Telephone number
+46 (0)8-586 080 00
skolinspektionen@skolinspektionen.se
Address
Main Office
Skolinspektionen
Box 23069
104 35 Stockholm
Sweden
Visiting address Main Office
Skolinspektionen
Sveavägen 159
Stockholm