Principal in Eskilstuna warns of absence chaos at his school: "I want help"

Kerstin Soläng has worked as a mobile principal since 2014, which means that she jumps in as principal at schools where it is needed.

She has been at Fristadsskolan since the autumn term, and absenteeism is high there.

- We do not succeed in anything further, she says.

"Scary big"

From the autumn semester of 2021 until the end of March, 98 of the school's approximately 460 students were away 30 percent or more of their school time.

Of those, more than half were gone 50 percent or more.

- It's scary big.

Being away 10 percent of your school time means that you have lost one year of your teaching.

This is of great importance for the development of knowledge, says Soläng.

But the high school absenteeism is not a unique problem for Fristadsskolan.

Since last autumn, students at the municipal primary schools in Eskilstuna have been away for an average of 13 percent of their school time.

The period before the pandemic was an absence of 9 percent.

There is a high absenteeism at Fristadsskolan.

Photo: SVT Design

"Feeling the failure"

The high levels of absenteeism still remain despite the introduction of a method called the absenteeism ladder, which will help schools to detect absenteeism at an early stage.

- I am responsible for all students at my school to succeed as well as possible according to their conditions, I feel this failure, she says.

New methods

The management of the children and education administration will start looking for new methods for the autumn term to reduce absenteeism.

- We need to develop more methods against this, says Soläng.

In the clip above, you can hear what Kerstin Soläng has done to try to reverse the trend.