Education in Sweden

Executive summary

Sweden’s education system is founded on strong values of equity, inclusion and local autonomy. It benefits from a high level of public trust, professional engagement, and well-developed digital infrastructure. At the same time, Sweden seems to face persistent challenges in ensuring consistently high-quality learning environments across its decentralised system. In this context, Swedish authorities invited the OECD to conduct a diagnostic review focussing on digital education and school climate and safety drawing primarily on an in-depth analysis of PISA 2022 data.

The review combines quantitative evidence from PISA 2022 with stakeholder interviews, a background questionnaire prepared by the Swedish authorities and extensive desk-based analysis. It examines how Swedish students experience their learning environment, how digital tools and school climate relate to learning outcomes, and how governance and resource-related factors might shape opportunities for improvement. As PISA reflects the experiences and learning outcomes of 15-year-old students, it captures conditions at a specific stage of schooling. However, achievement at age 15, including observed inequities, maybe also shaped by policies and practices throughout earlier years of education. These findings are therefore interpreted in combination with qualitative insights to provide a fuller understanding of the challenges and opportunities identified in this review.

PISA 2022 trends: Resilience combined with widening disparities

Sweden’s PISA performance from 2012 to 2022 shows improvement between 2012 and 2018 followed by a decline in mathematics and reading, while performance in science has been comparatively stable. Despite this, Sweden continues to perform above the OECD average in all three domains. At the same time, the influence of socio-economic status on performance has grown, and differences between students with and without an immigrant background are among the largest in the OECD. These gaps have been persistent over several cycles and raise concerns about the inclusiveness of the system. PISA also reveals mixed learning conditions. Swedish students report strong teacher support and positive relationships with teachers, but also frequent distractions, disruptions and difficulties concentrating. These trends frame the thematic analysis of this review.

Digital education: Strong digital readiness, but uneven pedagogical integration

Sweden is one of the most digitally advanced education systems in the OECD. Students report widespread access to devices and connectivity both at home and at school. School leaders express high satisfaction with infrastructure, and socio-economic differences in access are relatively small.

However, PISA 2022 shows that the learning benefits of digital tools depend not only on access but also on the quality of their use. Students who report moderate and purposeful digital engagement tend, on average, to achieve higher scores than students who use digital tools either very rarely or very frequently. Stakeholder perspectives suggest that practices vary substantially across schools. Teachers in some municipalities receive strong support and training, while others report uncertainty about expectations, especially following recent debates on digitalisation and shifts in national strategies.

The findings indicate that Sweden would benefit from reinforcing guidance on pedagogical use, supporting evidence-informed digital practices and strengthening teacher professional development. These themes align with the policy considerations identified in Chapter 4, which emphasise the need to ensure that national digital strategies are implemented consistently across municipalities, supported by professional learning, and anchored in clear models for effective digital instruction.

School disciplinary climate and safety: Strong relationships, but frequent classroom disruptions

A notable strength of Sweden’s schools is the quality of teacher-student relationships. PISA 2022 shows that students experience high levels of encouragement and fairness from teachers, particularly in mathematics lessons. This relational strength is central to Sweden’s educational culture.

However, Sweden performs below the OECD average on the disciplinary climate index. Students report frequent disruptions, delayed lesson starts, and difficulties maintaining focus. Around one in three students states that they cannot work well in most or all lessons, and more than half report not listening to what the teacher says, though interpretation of the latter requires caution due to translation differences in the Swedish PISA questionnaire. School leaders also report substantial behavioural problems, including truancy and disorder.

Perceptions of safety vary across groups. Girls, socio-economically disadvantaged students and students with an immigrant background tend to feel less safe at school than their peers, even though disadvantaged students report slightly fewer specific safety risks than advantaged students. Stakeholders emphasised that recent debates have focussed heavily on disciplinary measures, while preventive and relational approaches may receive less attention. The policy considerations in Chapter 4 highlight the need for a balanced approach that pairs clear behavioural expectations with support for student well-being, social belonging, and early intervention.

Policy considerations in relation to resources and governance: Balancing autonomy with coherence and implementation capacity

Sweden’s multi-level governance model gives municipalities and independent school organisers substantial responsibility for funding, staffing and organising education. While this supports local responsiveness, it also creates variation in learning conditions and in the support available to schools for improving digital practices and strengthening disciplinary climate and safety. Four resource-related challenges appear most relevant to the issues identified in the first two chapters:

• Funding differences across municipalities influence their capacity to support students with higher needs, invest in digital infrastructure, and maintain safe, well-equipped learning environments.

• Human resource disparities, particularly in rural and remote areas, affect the availability of qualified teachers and leaders, shaping schools’ ability to manage behavioural challenges and integrate digital tools effectively.

• Infrastructure pressures, including ageing buildings and demographic change, place financial strain on some municipalities and may affect conditions for learning and digital instruction.

• Variation in local implementation capacity can lead to inconsistencies in how national expectations for digital education and school climate are translated into practice.

These issues connect to the eight policy considerations presented in this review. Together, they underline the importance of strengthening coherence across governance levels, reinforcing local capacity and ensuring fair resource allocation so that schools across Sweden are better supported in addressing challenges related to digital education and school disciplinary climate and safety.

Looking ahead

Sweden’s education system has strong foundations. It benefits from high digital readiness, committed educators, strong relational support and a long tradition of evidence-based policymaking. However, persistent inequities, variation in local capacity and challenges in classroom climate and digital use suggest the need for renewed and coordinated efforts. By addressing these areas, Sweden can continue to advance towards safe, inclusive and high-quality learning environments for all students.