The gap in ratings has increased in recent years

By law, all pupils in Sweden are entitled to an equivalent education.

“Wherever the student lives and regardless of social and economic home conditions, education must be of high quality. The education will also compensate for the students' different backgrounds and other different conditions, "the Swedish National Agency for Education writes on its website.

However, the goal of reaching an equal school for everyone seems to be difficult to reach. There is a grading gap in Sweden and the gap is increasing.

Above all, there are large differences in grades between students depending on the parents' level of education. The latest figures from the National Agency for Education, which apply to the 2016/2017 academic year, show that pupils in ninth grade in compulsory school with highly educated parents on average have a credit value of 252.1 in their grades, while students with low educated parents have a credit value of an average of 203.4.

The credit value is a compilation of grades in school subjects that show how high the total grades a student has. The maximum credit value is 340.

In addition, SVT Nyheter's compilation shows that the grading gap has increased in recent years.

The difference in credit value between students with highly educated and low-educated parents was thus on average 48.7 according to the latest figures from the 2016/2017 academic year. If you go back five or ten years in time, the gap is considerably less (41.5 and 40 credit points respectively).

Helena Holmlund, a school researcher at IFAU, suspects that refugee immigration is the most important explanation for the grading gap.

- One possible explanation for the change may be that the composition of the group with weak conditions has changed. The proportion of foreign-born parents has increased.

Is that the most important explanation, do you think?
- I can't answer it because I haven't analyzed these figures myself, but based on my previous experience of analyzing such data, I would think so, yes, she says and continues:

- The group of students who have parents who immigrated has increased, that group has even worse conditions to manage school and then the differences become larger.

Another factor that clearly influences the grades is where in Sweden the student goes to school. There is also a grading gap between city and countryside where students who live in cities on average have higher grades than students who live in rural areas. The credit value is on average about 20 higher for students living in and near cities, compared to those living in rural areas. The gap in ratings has also increased in recent years.

A third factor that influences is whether the student's parents were born in Sweden or abroad. In the past ten years, the grading gap here has been fairly stable at around 10 credit points, but between the academic year 2015/2016 and 2016/2017 the gap has increased somewhat.

Footnote: All figures come from the National Agency for Education and apply to students in ninth grade. The latest rating statistics available apply to the 2016/2017 academic year.