The Tellus Group welcomes the report on a national school voucher standard
Published: November 3, 2023
We at the Tellus Group welcome the government’s initiative to find a way to make school funding more equitable. As it stands today, there is a difference of as much as 70,000 kronor per year per student between the municipality that invests the most and the one that invests the least. It is good that there is room for some variation in municipal investment in schools, but the differences should not be so large, and the system should not be so complicated.
We also agree with Education Minister Lotta Edholm that municipalities should be compensated for their overall responsibility. But as things stand today, municipalities are already overcompensated. A report from the Swedish Association of Independent Schools shows that independent schools receive about 9 percent less in funding compared to municipal schools, even after taking into account the municipalities’ overall responsibility and differences in student composition. These facts demonstrate exactly how baseless the debate over the so-called overcompensation of independent schools is.
The fact that independent schools also provide high-quality education despite receiving lower funding shows that they manage their resources more efficiently than public schools. If municipalities had operated in the same way as independent schools, they would have saved 9 percent of their tax revenue.
Although the investigation guidelines emphasize the importance of equality, they also allow municipalities to allocate more funding to their own schools than to independent schools. This violates the principle of equality. If a municipality wants to invest in schools, it should do so for all students.
We look forward to a thorough investigation into the issue of funding and the equity of financial conditions. Such an investigation—and the resulting answers to the questions at hand—will benefit the entire education sector and can reasonably lead to no other conclusion than that independent schools are underfunded and need to receive more reasonable funding.
Bijan Fahimi
CEO, Tellus Group
For more information
Bijan Fahimi, CEO of Tellusgruppen AB
bijan.fahimi@tellusgruppen.noboxdesign.se
+46 707 167 453
About Tellusgruppen AB (publ)
The Tellus Group is a long-term owner of well-managed companies in the education and childcare sectors. The Group currently operates 28 preschools and seven elementary schools, and also provides childcare and educational services.
The Tellus Group was founded in 2012 as the parent company of Tellusbarn (Tellusbarn was founded in 2007) and as a platform for future expansion in the education and childcare sector.
The Tellus Group’s business concept is to establish, operate, and develop profitable and growing subsidiaries that offer high-quality, innovative, and in-demand services within their respective fields.
