The Education System in Sweden

Almost the entire adult Swedish population is literate. Education is free and compulsory between ages 7 and 15. The Swedish state school system comprises compulsory school and various types of voluntary schooling. There is a nine-year comprehensive compulsory school and a three-year upper secondary school with both academic and vocational study programs.

Almost 50% of young people in Sweden go on to higher education within five years of completing their upper secondary schooling. First-time enrollments every year total about 83,000. Distance learning, mainly in the form of correspondence courses, has a long tradition in Sweden. Today most universities and other institutions of higher education offer this form of study.

Postgraduate education is provided at the universities as well as at the Royal Institute of Technology in Stockholm, the Karolinska Institute in Stockholm, the Stockholm School of Economics, Chalmers University of Technology in Göteborg, the University College of Jönköping, Luleå University of Technology, and the University of Agricultural Sciences in Uppsala.

The quality of Sweden’s education is well respected. Sweden’s national evaluation program is considered to be among the world’s most stringent. The panel evaluates both undergraduate and post-graduate education.