At IES, the students will meet teachers from countries like the United Kingdom, The United States, Canada and South Africa, as well as teachers from Sweden. Our international teachers have qualifications equal to a Swedish lärarexamen, such as a Bachelor of Education or a postgraduate certificate of education. 

At IES we have an experienced recruitment team, that year after year make recruitment trips to well renowned universities, like McGill University in Montreal that ranks among Canada's most prestigious universities, or the University of Manchester where some of our science teachers have studied at one of the Top Ten Education departments in the UK. We attend teacher career fairs and interview candidates on site, before recruiting them to Sweden.

In a time when there is an acute shortage of teachers in Sweden, all huvudmän are struggling to recruit qualified teachers to their schools. For IES it is a strength to be able to recruit skilled and qualified staff from overseas. Many of our international staff choose to stay in Sweden, learn Swedish and then apply for a Swedish teachers certificate.

International teachers are qualified in Sweden

The international teachers teaching in English are regarded as qualified to teach in Sweden thanks to an exception in the School law. Since 2022 the school inspectorate has been interpreting the law as that the exception should not include teachers in the subjects English and modern foreign languages. That was not the intention of the lawmakers and since it is obviously an advantage to have native English speakers teaching the English language, IES argues that the law should be clarified so that the language teachers are included in the exception.

We believe that a language is best learned through what we call language immersion, which means that you meet and interact with native speakers in your daily life, which is possible thanks to all our skilled international staff.

Robin Kirk Johansson, Head of Education, Internationella Engelska Skolan