The principle of access to free (tax-financed) education for the whole population, throughout life, is among the pillars of the Swedish welfare state. Education begins in day care centers and preschools, which an overwhelming majority of all Swedish children attend, then continues with the nine-year compulsory school and the voluntary upper secondary school, to which practically all Swedish youngsters continue nowadays.
Örebro University. Photo: Petter Koubek
More remarkable in an international perspective is that university and college education in Sweden is also heavily tax-financed and thus more or less free, as well as supported by a generous system of study loans and grants that makes higher education accessible to people from all social classes. During the past decade, large investments have been made in higher education and the number of students has risen by 50 percent.
Also characteristic of the Swedish educational ethos are extensive publicly subsidized systems of further education, retraining, adult schools and study circles. In addition, the private business sector offers a well-developed system of further education and self-improvement.
In a highly developed industrial nation like Sweden, with a steady and insatiable need for advanced knowledge, research plays a key role as an investment in the future. Sweden has a long history of ambitious research and development programs, both in the private business sector and the public sector — and often including collaboration between the two. Sweden tops European comparative statistics both in terms of research investments as a percentage of GDP and in the number of published scientific works per capita.