Sweden: High Policy Ambitions with Soft Accountability

Abstract

In Sweden, there are ambitious national ambitions to increase academic student results, even if the accountability system remains soft. The chapter identifies and presents three different governance paradigms: Old Public Management, New Public Management and New Public Governance (Magnusson, Vad händer i själva verket? Om styrning och handlingsutrymme i Skolverket under åren 1991–2014. [What happens in reality. About Governance and Room to Maneuver in the Swedish National Agency for Education 1991–2014, in Swedish. Thesis. Uppsala universitet, Uppsala: 2018). Even if many practitioners trust the agencies, they also encounter detailed regulations and abundant reforms that have contributed to a debate about whether teachers spend too little time on teaching. It is obvious that the various levels above the principal in the institutional hierarchy endeavour to improve and change local schools, without acknowledging how their own culture and structure must improve. The serious ambition to improve results and schools has, at the same time, engendered activities and regulations to meet all objectives and resolve all problems that contribute to excessive work at all levels, rather than national and local priorities.