Divergences and convergences between Swedish and Spanish educational system

Abstract

This article contrasts two educational systems, Swedish and Spanish, because they show their own characteristic features which explain different achievements. So, Swedish Education has a decentralized administrative structure that grants a high level of autonomy to the municipalities and to the schools, decentralization that lives with the new recentralizing measures, a high investment in education, an institutional structure that introduces new control measures, away from the Swedish comprehensive school model, an emerging polarization in schools and teachers who must have specialized training, in response to the new training model, born in 2011. On the other hand, Spanish Education seems not to have solved nuclear issues such as administrative and organizational aspects, as well as other questions such as a deficient investment, a school integration which seems to fail again and frequently unmotivated teachers, whose work is not always properly recognized, and whose training also attends to the characteristic system’s fluctuations. Turbulent times for educational systems suffering from constant reforms, which come together in certain changes of direction.