Thorengruppen's owner Raja Thoren was pleased when he allowed himself to be interviewed by SVT in November 2021 before the inauguration of Thoren Arena in Umeå.
"It's quite powerful to see that we've got it together from a drawing board. We have had a lot against us, with the pandemic and increased costs for building materials, said Raja Thoren.
But at the same time as he let the school group finance the entire construction of Thoren Arena, there were school students who did not receive the education to which they were entitled. SVT's review shows that many of the schools have had long and sometimes recurring periods since 2010 when they have been cases with the Swedish Schools Inspectorate for violating the Education Act.
23 of the Group's schools have broken the law when it comes to the teaching to which students are entitled.
School vouchers were used for arena construction
The same autumn as the construction of Thoren Arena entered the final phase, the Swedish Schools Inspectorate rejected almost all Thorengruppen's applications to start new schools, citing serious deficiencies in a number of the Group's existing schools.
At several schools, premises and equipment have been lacking, for example for chemistry labs.
At the same time, Thorengruppen, which receives most of the revenue from school vouchers, has sent group contributions to the subsidiary Thoren Arena AB. This amounts to a total of almost SEK 23 million during the years 2020-2022.
Friskolornas riksförbund critical
Today, neither Raja Thoren nor anyone else in the management wants to be interviewed by SVT about the arena or the group contributions there.
It is not illegal to let income from school vouchers go to other things than schools, but the government documents write in the Tidö Agreement that it will be possible to claim back school vouchers if they are used for other purposes than schools. When SVT revealed that school vouchers in other groups had gone to buy, among other things, a waffle cottage, Minister for Education Lotta Edholm said that she thinks this type of transaction is doubtful.
Today, the Minister for Education does not want to comment on the business of individual groups. But the CEO of the Swedish Free Schools Association, Ulla Hamilton, is critical.
"If, at the same time, there has been criticism from the Swedish Schools Inspectorate for not maintaining quality, then there is no one who can justify such behaviour," says Ulla Hamilton.