How much should screens take up in schools? Is the use of screens affecting the acquisition of skills considered essential? Are there differences between centres? This has been the debate in Sweden for some months now. The place that screens and digital technology should occupy in schools, a topic that has been questioned by health professionals. And it goes in line with the decision adopted by the Barcelona City Council for its children’s schools; remove technological devices from classrooms.
As a result of this debate, the new Minister of Education, Lotta Edholm, has postponed the strategy of the National School Education Agency (Skolverket) in its digital plan, which was presented in December 2022. Then, the minister already wrote in an article against the “uncritical attitude that considers digitization as a good thing, regardless of its content”, which makes us “leave aside” textbooks, which, as she pointed out, have “advantages that no tablet can replace”.
The minister does not deny children’s digital competence learning, does not eliminate screens, but emphasizes paper. “The Pirls report (on reading comprehension) is a sign that we have a reading crisis in Swedish schools. In the future, the Government wants to see more textbooks and less screen time at school.”
Sweden, a country of 10 million inhabitants, obtained a score in the 2021 Pirls Report of 544, above the European average (528), Spain (522) and Catalonia (507). But this figure has dropped 11 points compared to the 2016 report.
As he advanced, the fact that students learn to read and understand what they read is a prerequisite for global learning, and technology is causing the focus to be lost on this goal. In his opinion, it is worrying that reading ability is declining among children and young people, so Swedish schools need to go back to basics. “You need to focus on basic skills such as reading, writing and arithmetic,” Edholm recently stated according to some Swedish newspapers.
To remedy the situation, the center-right Government announced on May 15 that it will unlock 685 million crowns (60 million euros) this year and 500 million (44 million euros) annually in 2024 and 2025, for accelerate the return of textbooks to schools. “This is part of the return of reading to school, to the detriment of screen time”, warned the minister. The aim is to guarantee one book per student and per subject. Likewise, the Swedish Government has invested specific financial items intended for the purchase of didactic school material and, specifically, the equivalent of around 4 million euros to strengthen the development of language, reading and writing.
Several studies emphasize that the paper format is better than the digital format in terms of learning to read, according to the Professor of Education at the University of Barcelona, ​​Enric Prats. “We know that what helps the most is reading on paper, calm, calm and if it is accompanied by the voice, even better”, he points out. However, he doubts that only the digital change to the book will solve the problem of reading comprehension. In his opinion, this is an aspect that all teachers (not just language teachers) are responsible for and that would help generate a habit of reading in children, although he knows that it is a goal that will not be achieved by all of them .
In addition to returning to essential learning such as reading, the Swedish Government also wants the teacher to focus on his teaching work. The Ministry of Education announced on Wednesday the creation of a commission to analyze the bureaucratic burden on teachers. “Schools are suffering from the disease of documentation”, asserted the minister who clarified that it is not a question of them doing more classes in return, but of freeing up time so that teachers can “plan, review and carry out their teaching work , without being constantly stressed by other tasks”.
