The Swedish National Agency for Education on the criticism: "We have received a lesson"

The Swedish National Audit Office has examined Sweden's implementation of the international Pisa survey 2018.

The survey is conducted by the OECD and is an international evaluation of students' school results.

According to the National Audit Office's review, more students have been excluded from the survey than the regulations allowed.

- We have come to the conclusion that the National Agency for Education has certainly reviewed the information initiatives that the OECD prescribes in its manuals, but it has not been followed up that the information has been perceived correctly in schools, says Sofia Sandgren Massi, Audit Director at the National Audit Office.  

The National Agency for Education's director general Peter Fredriksson believes that it was the schools and not the National Agency for Education that excluded the students from the survey.

At the same time, he states that the criticism directed at the National Agency for Education is reasonable.

"We should have done even more"

- We do not want a discussion about the study itself and the number of excluded students and therefore we think it is important that the National Agency for Education does what we can so that we do not end up there again, he says.

In answer to the question what he thinks the National Agency for Education could have done differently, he answers:

- We should have followed up even more and even better the students who were excluded so that we could have answered politicians and debaters that we are in control and that we have made sure that it is right and proper. Now there have been doubts and we have been given a lesson and we will do it next time it is time for Pisa studies, he says.