“Fuskarna” (2025): a book about Swedish schools

Just like Åk till akuten (which is about healthcare), this book has just been published and is most relevant this year as it gives a snapshot of the current state of the system, and the elections are coming in 2026.

Natalia Kazmierska has written a lot about Swedish schools in her time as an investigative journalist at Aftonbladet, one of the two biggest tabloids. The tone of the book is not by any means neutral and cold: you can clearly feel the bitter disappointment and sometimes even anger of the author who puts the children first in every story. They only get one chance at getting a school education, and that chance can now be seriously compromised by some of the biggest actors in the school market (because yes, these days it's a market). The book unfortunately doesn't list particular sources or references, but as far as I understood, it builds on the author's previous articles and investigations, as well as the interviews and documents she used for them.

Onto the content!

The chapters go through a series of stories, highlighting different real-life effects of the current system where the private schools (that can be — and are — run for profit) get the taxpayer money based on how many students they have every year. Legally, the payment per student has to be the same as the public schools get, and this can lead to things such as described in one of the first chapters of the book. The Huddinge municipality had to renovate some school buildings that were falling apart, the kids were moved to expensive rented barracks in the meantime, all of this cost money and the public schools' expenditure increased by 15%. Therefore the private schools in the municipality also got 15% more even though they didn't have to renovate any buildings. This way the municipality was hit twice with the expense. Due to this and to the fact that e.g. rent of the school building doesn't cost less if some of the students left the public school for a private one (and private schools can get established wherever), the municipalities are forced to cut down on other things in their budgets. The private schools don't have to invest the money into the students or the quality of education, they can pay out bonuses to the stakeholders, and they do.

One thing that the book dives deep in which I wasn't aware of was that apart from attracting and selecting “easier” students to hold the costs down (easier = those who are motivated to study, have educated parents who can help out, and no difficulties like dyslexia), some private schools instead succesfully target another audience with potentially scarier outcomes. They advertise that you can get an iPad and a gym membership, and that the passing grades will be easy to get (and they are, with the school rectors correcting F:s that the teachers graded the students with). The author compares this with the flashy rewards that gangs use to get the teenagers' attention. Long story short, the schools aren't competing on pedagogical approaches or anything knowledge-related, they compete on whatever attracts less successful and motivated students in the short term, and basically cheat when it comes to metrics like the percentage of the graduates with passing grades, because one way or another, as long as the students are assigned to that school, they're generating money for the bottom line. What happens next is not really the school's problem.

There are also chapters about the profits generated off of Swedish schools being used for donating to Trump and making weapon deals with Saudis, about male teachers punishing girls who have a visible bra strap, and all sorts of other questionable things. It's not every page that is depressing or concerning, there are glimmers of hope and people who care for the children and their future, but it's definitely thought-provoking in the “is this really a good system” way.

Language

To my fellow learners of Swedish I can say that this is not the easiest book to read. The grammar structures are simple most of the time, but the vocabulary is rich and wide, spanning from slang to political terms. Not recommended for someone on B1 level of Swedish; doable on B2 if you're strongly motivated; good for C1. I'm at C1 reading-wise, and I had to look up two words on the first page already. I will also never forget the meaning of vurma anymore because it was used so many times in this book :)