News | 03 March 2025
Proposal to reduce the administrative burden for teachers
The amount of time teachers spend on work other than teaching has steadily increased. Now a new white paper calls for change.
A new white paper "Time to educate" (Tid för undervisningsuppdraget) was submitted to the government today, 3 March. It considers reducing the administrative burden for teachers at preschools and schools.
Investigator Bo Jansson describes, among other things, how the number of work tasks to be performed both in, near, and outside teaching has increased over time.
Among the proposals is that teachers' entire teaching assignment should be defined in the Education Act (Skollagen). In addition to teaching, planning and follow-up should be clearly included, as well as a maximum extent of teachers' teaching time in compulsory and upper secondary schools. A minimum amount of time should also be allocated for planning and follow-up of teaching in all types of school as well as leisure-time centres (fritidshemmet).
Linda Öholm, head of public affairs at Internationella Engelska Skolan (IES), said: "We welcome a white paper that gives teachers the opportunity to focus on their core mission of teaching students. However, a lot remains to be done before this will be ready in practice. It is not guaranteed that more legislation will solve the problem."
Robin Kirk Johansson, head of education at IES, said: "The white paper focuses on teachers only teaching, but we believe that is too narrow. Creating a safe learning environment is based on teachers being able to build strong and positive relationships with their students. Many times, this happens outside the classroom. We expect our teachers to be experts in both teaching their subjects and fostering our students in their social development. This has been our philosophy and working method for more than 30 years.