News | 12 June 2025
White Paper Punishes Families Who Chose Independent Schools
Today, Thursday 12th June, the white paper into the school voucher system, ‘A National School-Voucher Norm for Increased Equivalence’ (En nationell skolpengsnorm för ökad likvärdighet) was submitted to the Swedish government. The inquiry’s author, Lena Holmdahl, has failed in her mission to create equal conditions for financing Swedish students' schooling and, unfortunately, instead proposes significantly reduced funding for students in independent schools.
Linda Öholm, head of public affairs at Internationella Engelska Skolan (IES), said: "Internationella Engelska Skolan believes that the proposals threaten the quality of education for students attending independent schools and, in the long run, undermine well-functioning schools. These proposals risk harming our students, our staff, and all our schools. The white paper should be thrown in the bin, immediately."
It is necessary to view this proposal in the context of all white papers currently being considered by the government. Among other things, another white paper has proposed that independent schools should, in principle, be excluded from quality-enhancing government grants, which currently constitute about 8% to 10% of the school's funding. In summary, if these proposals become reality, they would radically change the regulations that currently apply regarding equal terms for municipal and independent schools. Such a shift would reduce equality, negatively impact the possibility of high-quality education, and, in the longer term, threaten the ability to operate independent schools.
Ms Öholm concluded: "Now it is both high time and reasonable for the government to clearly state what they intend to do with all these different white papers. Collectively, these are no longer proposals aimed at renovating the regulatory framework for independent schools, but risk becoming the beginning of the end of freedom of choice in Swedish schools."
Internationella Engelska Skolan has just over 30,000 students, of whom 49% have a foreign background (compared to 27% for Sweden as a whole). In total, 92.3% of IES students were eligible for upper secondary school, compared to 83.7% for Sweden as a whole. During the 2023/2024 academic year, 81.3% of all IES students who completed year nine passed all subjects. The corresponding figure for the entire country was 71.9%, including IES – which means that IES students contribute to raising the national average. IES operating margin before interest and taxes for the previous year was 4.5%.