Letter to the Ministry of Education regarding the national strategy for the digitalization of the school system

Digitization Education and training

To Minister for Education Gustav Fridolin and Minister for Upper Secondary Education Anna Ekström at the Ministry of Education: Request for a meeting to ensure implementation of the national strategy for the digitalization of the school system. We, representatives of suppliers in Swedish digital industries, wish to have a meeting with the ministers to ensure a rapid implementation of the proposal for a strategy for the digitization of the school system produced by the Swedish National Agency for Education. With this meeting, we want to clarify the business community's need for clear leadership at all levels of the school system on this issue, and we would like to contribute with constructive proposals.

The IT and telecom sector, both through the trade association IT&Telekomföretagen and through individual companies, has for a long time promoted the importance of a thorough digitization of Swedish schools, so that they achieve a level of digital maturity that at least corresponds to an average of other sectors of society. This is as much about the sector's desire to be effective business partners to the school as it is about the fact that the actors are in great need of future employees - today's school pupils - who have high digital skills.

As representatives of the digital industries, we have for many years highlighted that effective digitalization is less about access to equipment and more about developing methods and ways of working. We have also stressed that it is not just about improving teachers' digital skills, but that digitization must take place at all levels of the education system.

In a letter to the National Agency for Education on 21 December 2015 (cf. Appendix 1), we highlighted, as a basis for the National Agency for Education's assignment to develop a strategy, the following order of priority for school digitization:

  1. A digital headteacher upgrading, including making IT didactic competence a compulsory part of the state headteacher training and implementing a digital headteacher upgrading for active headteachers within a three-year period.
  2. Investing in teachers' skills, including through training on current digital tools and practices over a three-year period, and by incorporating the use of digital tools and practices as compulsory elements of teacher training.
  3. Investing in students' digital literacy, including in the following areas: safe and critical use of information society technologies, basic ICT skills and basic programming skills.

The first and most prioritized point, about leadership, we particularly emphasized in a debate article in Dagens Samhälle on June 17, 2016, "Rektorerna måste leda digitaliseringsarbetet".

The Swedish National Agency for Education has now presented a package of strategy proposals that we consider promising. However, it is with both concern and disappointment that we note the absence of further initiatives from the government linked to the strategy proposals: The proposals have not been sent for reply to public consultation, the digitization of schools was not mentioned in the government declaration and the budget bill only states that "the government is working ... to develop IT strategies" without any concrete proposals being stated, or that any specific funds are allocated linked to the Swedish National Agency for Education's proposals.

Unfortunately, Sweden is in the minority internationally when it comes to school digitalization. Both our Nordic neighbors and the leading countries in the EU have both adopted comprehensive strategies and begun to implement concrete measures, such as embedding programming and other forms of digital knowledge in education.

In the strong wave of digitalization that Sweden is experiencing, we cannot afford to have a school system that is stuck in 20th century ways of working.

We invited representatives of the Ministry of Education to a conversation on school digitalization with the IT&Telecom Companies' IT Competence Council on 13 May 2016, but we never received a response. We now hope for a better hearing on this critical issue for all our futures.

Yours sincerely

Anne-Marie Fransson, Director of IT&Telecom Confederation

Johan Rittner, CEO IBM Sweden

Per Johanson, CEO Tieto Sweden

Carl-Johan Hultenheim, CEO Atea Sweden

Joacim Damgard, CEO Microsoft Sweden

Leyla Schreiber, CEO One Agency

Lars Kry, CEO Sigma IT Consulting

Carl-Johan Hamilton, Deputy CEO of Ants and Chairman of the IT&Telecom Companies' IT Competence Council