Weak support for education based on scientific evidence in schools

The National Agency for Education, the National Agency for Special Needs Education and Schools and the Swedish Institute for Educational Research are to support the school system, including by producing support and training materials and research summaries. The government agencies’ support is to help schools fulfil the Education Act’s requirements on the use of scientific evidence and documented professional experience.

The Swedish National Audit Office’s audit shows that the government agencies’ efforts to develop support materials have not followed the necessary steps of a systematic and transparent procedure. There are several examples of support materials in which the judgements of individual employees or researchers have had a major impact, as the agencies have not required that all relevant research be taken into account.

This audit also shows that researchers engaged by the National Agency for Education do not have sufficient time to compile research comprehensively, and many researchers decline collaboration due to short timeframes.

“It is essential that government agencies’ knowledge support resources for school staff are based on research summaries on which there is consensus. Agencies must ensure that individuals’ interests or opinions do not have an unjustifiably heavy influence on the support materials,” says Auditor General Christina Gellerbrant Hagberg.

“Many teachers rely on these government agencies. The shortcomings in the agencies’ support materials could ultimately affect teaching and lead to pupils’ learning outcomes falling short of what they could be,” says Helena Holmlund, project leader for the audit.

The Swedish National Audit Office assesses that the Government’s management is one of the reasons why support materials for schools are fragmented and difficult to access. There is a partial overlap among government agencies’ remits; several agencies publish support materials and there are various different formats on several agencies’ websites. Teachers state that they do not know where to turn for support, and some support materials are not sufficiently applicable for teachers to be able to use.

The audit also shows that there is no method or structure at national level for systematically collecting, examining and documenting experiences from the teaching profession – that is, documented professional experience. Therefore, government agencies in the education sector cannot take documented professional experience into account when developing their knowledge base.

“Agencies’ support should be based on systematically developed knowledge that has been accumulated over time. Such support can also help teachers to deal with education and teaching trends”, says Helena Holmlund.

The Swedish Schools Inspectorate is to inspect education quality. However, the Swedish Schools Inspectorate’s quality criteria are primarily based on schools’ policy documents and are not supported by research using the requisite systematic approach. As the criteria are decidedly normative, this could result in schools planning their teaching based on factors that are not linked to high pupil attainment.