Stockholm has long had one of Sweden’s most privatized adult education programs, with over 80 percent of all provision under private auspices. This has led to everything from extensive quality challenges, a large number of canceled courses to outright irregularities and cheating. When new adult education has now been procured for the period 2024-2030, the red-green board has decided to take back roughly 40 percent under its own auspices, and in several other ways to strengthen the quality of the education.
– Stockholm’s labor market is crying out for skilled, professionally trained labour. We must have adult education that delivers – both for the interests of companies, welfare and students. The system that Stockholm has had for a long time, where over 80 percent of the education was run by private actors, has not kept up. Students have entered the labor market without sufficient knowledge, grade bonuses have led to cheating and supervision has broken down. Now we change and do the right thing, says financial councilor Karin Wanngård (S).
In addition to the city bringing back more education under its own auspices, a series of other changes are being implemented to strengthen quality and get more students into the labor market. Among other things, the city must increase the proportion of teaching in classrooms, strengthen individual support and expand outreach work to get more people into education.
– The target group for adult education has changed over time. It places completely new demands on us. The students have a greater need for support and many cannot pass the courses today. For a long time, we have tried to set higher demands in the procurements without the desired results, and have therefore landed on the idea that the best thing is for the city itself to a greater degree to offer the training courses where we see that the needs are being disturbed. That way, we can ensure that students get the right to more individual support and real classroom teaching, so they can actually enter the labor market, says school, labor market and personnel citizen’s council Emilia Bjuggren (S).
In order to combat cheating and irregularities, the city will strengthen the follow-up of procured actors during the coming contract period, and the red-green board has also decided to abolish the grade bonus, a system that led to students being approved without sufficient knowledge.
In previous procurement, the city had agreements with 15 suppliers, on 38 agreements. In the new procurement, the number of suppliers will be 6 out of 10 contracts. The city of Stockholm will in future run all SFI Studieväg 1 as well as large parts of the care and social care education under its own auspices.
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Tags: Stockholm democratic control adult education
