Visual education in compulsory school grades 1-9 will be increased from a total of 230 to 240 hours according to the National Agency for Education's new proposal for new timetables.
It is the primary school that gets the extra ten hours, plus five more that are reallocated from the high school.
The fact that high school students lose a total of five hours of art lessons may sound small, but the proposal has made art teachers across the country look red.
- The time, which we already believe is scarce to cope with our teaching, will be reduced even more, says art teacher Åsa Fallgren.
Hundreds in protest
Hundreds of teachers have signed a protest list against the National Agency for Education's proposal, which has been out for consultation.
Now the teachers hope that the proposal will be changed before it is submitted to the government on 31 March.
The criticism is, among other things, that the subject has been prioritized away in favor of other subjects for many years, and that the art teachers now risk not being able to complete their assignments.
An art teacher in upper secondary school can teach 400-500 students a week - often in a whole class with 25-30 students at a time - and that in a practical subject where many are in need of individual help.
There is often only one art teacher per high school, who alone finds it difficult to make his voice heard.
"Not understood"
Prioritizing image teaching in upper secondary school is misconceived, according to the teachers behind the protests, because the students then become so large that they are able to analyze and critically examine image content that we take part in daily via advertising and social media.
- There are many who do not understand what image teaching means today.
They think you sit and paint still lifes with the children.
But then you probably did not understand what we are working with, says Linda Leib.