One aspect of swedish life that I found very difficult to deal with, and even two years later, is the way Swedish schools conduct themselves, especially universities (högskolans). The system that högskolans use here in Sweden is somewhat strange, and quite poorly organised. I guess my experience is limited to Halmstad, which admittedly is ranked as one of the poorest schools in Sweden.

When you arrive at the school, and register, the school is not open very often in the weeks leading up to the first day, so orientating yourself to the school outside of the silly groups that they sort out (of which I didn't fit into any, because I was not taking an entire course, just swedish papers) is near on impossible. Not to mention I only got my letter of acceptance 2 weeks after the course started.

So, with administration horrors aside (and I have heard worse stories), I begin the classes, which were, quite sadly, similar to SFI (Komvux, which is the organisation that takes care of Swedish for Immigrants). Once the alphabet was mastered (by maybe 3 people in the class), did the classes proceed to be slow, and poorly done. Credit to the teacher for keeping it interesting, but with only one class a week, and no following up, until the exam, was it impossible to gauge the progress of the students, to cover problem areas, and to improve the overall learning of the students.

The paper requires two classes every week, one lecture, and one group meeting, where maybe 10 people meet, discuss the classes, with some structure naturally, and this way the students learn more, and can understand the language better.

After passing the first Swedish paper, and missing registration for the second paper, I took the second paper a year later, attended 3 classes, and saw that the process had actually gotten worse, with the teacher cancelling classes because he wanted to go to a fair in northern sweden.

Having watched someone else go through the course system, have I often been bewildered at the strange expectations of some teachers, with criteria often being shifted for every student, or every activity. Information was poorly handed out, along with research projects which fail to develop a students knowledge on a subject adequately. Classes were changed on the morning, sometimes  within an hour of classes due to begin.

Teachers fail to take responsibility for their actions here, and there is very little control being implemented above them. 

Swedish schooling systems, especially here in Halmstad, need to improve, the quality of schooling is letting Swedish people down. The english schooling system, especially at higher levels, is much more structured and better organised here.

Its time Sweden looks outside its own borders and take onboard how things work in other countries....