The basic problem is that many children live in areas where school places are not enough. The district system had the right to get a school placement within its district. Instead, the whole of Gothenburg has been an area for two years, and school admissions are centrally controlled.

- We went from having ten principals for the school to one principal. When we do not have to take into account the old district boundaries, you can sometimes get a placement you did not want, says Nils Kaiser, acting head of the government department of primary school administration.

Better for some

So that becoming a single principal has made it worse for the students?

- Well, it has become better for students who, when the district boundaries were barriers, were not able to get their desired placement, says Nils Kaiser.

But it has thus become worse for many students who live in areas with popular schools. This applies mainly to Majorna-Linné and western Gothenburg. There are examples where a 12-year-old should travel every day from Ekebäck to Brunnsbo and back. It is not many kilometers of bird path, but can take 45 minutes by bus and change. A road.

Digital system

The new digital support system, which was introduced for the first time this year, ignores factors such as public transport - or a river between home and school - but only looks at how many kilometers it is about.

- That's right. As the system looks now, it does not take public transport into account, admits Nils Kaiser.

The fact that some schools are more popular than others is nothing new. So why has it been so chaotic this year?

- We have 46,000 pupils in the municipal school and now twelve thousand have made a school choice. There are so many that we have to dig deeper to see what it looks like. But of course we look at what we could have done differently, says Nils Kaiser.

He does not want to set any maximum travel time as a limit.

- No, I cannot say what is acceptable or unacceptable. We are not satisfied if there is a long travel time, but sometimes it will.

Unfair?

Some parents believe that the investments are contrary to the principle of equality, since it affects children in central and western Gothenburg harder than children in other parts of the city. Your comment?

- Our attitude is that it is equivalent seen throughout the city. But there will always be students who make decisions about schools they did not want, says Nils Kaiser.

According to him, almost 85 percent of the children have nevertheless received one of the school choices they or their guardians have made.

But with twelve thousand placements, this means that at least 1,800 children have not received it. In addition, five alternative choices have been made. So, guessing, alternatives three, four and five have not been so high in course. Thus, even among the 85 per cent there can be a large amount of dissatisfied.