Which municipalities do better than expected?
The map shows the average SALSA score per municipality — the difference between the schools' actual merit values and what the model predicts given the pupils' backgrounds. Green municipalities perform better than expected; red ones worse.
Unlike an ordinary merit value map, which is dominated by socioeconomic patterns (wealthy municipalities = high values), the SALSA map shows a different landscape. Municipalities that rank highly in raw merit values can end up near zero or even in the red — their good results are entirely explained by the pupils' favourable backgrounds.
Conversely, municipalities with modest merit values can glow green: their schools perform better than what demographics predict. This may be due to dedicated teachers, strong principals, smart resource allocation or other local factors.
Municipalities in grey lack sufficient data (fewer than 15 pupils in year 9 per school). The map should not be interpreted in isolation — a positive deviation can be due to chance in a single year, and the model explains only 53 % of the variation. But as a complement to raw results, it gives a more nuanced picture of where in Sweden schools actually contribute the most.
Statistics: academic year 2023/24. Source: Skolverket open data, Kolada and SCB. Processed by Skolkoll. Glossary · About the data.