What happened
In the City of Stockholm as a whole, ninth-graders' eligibility for upper secondary vocational programs reached its highest level since 2011 this past spring, with nearly nine out of ten students passing. In the Farsta borough, however, eligibility dropped at several schools. The sharpest drop occurred at Farsta grundskola, where the share of eligible students fell from 85 to 77 percent, while Hökarängsskolan dropped for the third consecutive year to 81 percent. At Gubbängsskolan, the trend went in the opposite direction, with 93 percent of ninth-graders reaching eligibility. The principal at Farsta grundskola and the area's head of compulsory schools Mats Lundström state that high absenteeism and poor results in mathematics are the decisive causes behind the decline.
Our analysis
At Farsta grundskola, 23 percent of ninth-graders are now leaving compulsory school without eligibility for upper secondary school. Head of compulsory schools Mats Lundström and the education department point to student absenteeism and math skills as the reasons, and are planning interventions to strengthen instruction. But the reporting entirely lacks the voices of students and parents on why absenteeism has grown and what support was actually offered in time. At the same time, the school management highlights that well-resourced students are thriving and that merit ratings are rising, showing how divides are allowed to widen between those who succeed and those who fall behind. The next step lies with the education department in Stockholm, which must account for what concrete resources will be added to the classrooms to break the absenteeism pattern before yet another cohort is left behind.
Explained
Upper secondary school eligibility means that a student has received at least a passing grade in the subjects required to enter a national upper secondary program. For a vocational program, a passing grade in Swedish or Swedish as a second language, English, mathematics, and at least five other subjects is required.
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