How is Swedish education developing?
Historical trends provide perspective that cross-sectional data cannot. The chart shows how key school metrics have developed over time, split by municipal and independent schools.
Merit values have risen gradually in recent years — but the increase is not evenly distributed. Top schools have improved more than bottom schools, which means that the spread has increased. The gap between the best and worst schools is larger now than ten years ago.
Teacher certification has shown a slight upward trend after bottoming out in the mid-2010s. This reflects increased investment in teacher certification and teacher salary initiatives. But the improvement is uneven — the metropolitan regions have improved the most while rural areas have fallen behind.
The difference between municipal and independent schools has remained relatively stable over time. Independent schools consistently score somewhat higher in merit value but somewhat lower in teacher certification. The trend shows that structural differences in the Swedish school system are slow-moving — they change more slowly than the political debate.
Statistics: academic year 2023/24. Source: Skolverket open data, Kolada and SCB. Processed by Skolkoll. Glossary · About the data.