In the past, the teachers at the after-school centers were called leisure-time educators, now they go under the name basic teachers and it has become a shortage, the university writes in a press release.
The basic teacher education at Linköping University (Liu) has gone from 35 educational places in 2011 to just over 200 today.
According to Liu, research on holiday homes is neglected and therefore this investment is now being made.
Priorities in the curriculum
- This is something we have struggled with in teacher education, so we are extremely happy and proud that we get this money, says Helene Elvstrand, senior lecturer at the Department of Behavioral Sciences and Learning (IBL) at Liu.
Just over 90 per cent of pupils between the ages of six and nine participate in teaching at after-school centers, and the homes have been prioritized in the curriculum for compulsory school.
- The hope is to build up a large, national research base and recruit a number of doctoral students.
The research will be Liu-overall, but the hub and the basic teacher program are at Campus Norrköping.
SVT Nyheter Öst has previously met Helena Elvstrand and highlighted research that was about it being difficult to discover lonely children in leisure time.