Marcus Strömberg, CEO of the educational company Academedia, believes that the efforts made after the company was investigated have yielded results. Several revelations have exposed instances of grade manipulation at Academedia’s schools. In an interview with Ekot, Strömberg discusses the situation and the company’s plans to address the issue.
Academedia is the largest private education company in Sweden, with 100,000 preschool children and students. Aftonbladet has published several articles uncovering grade manipulation at the company’s schools, including erased and altered grades, teachers being pressured to give higher grades, and students seemingly improving their results rapidly.
Following the revelations, Academedia commissioned an external investigation. The inquiry revealed, among other things, that the company’s high schools give higher grades than the students’ performance on national exams to a greater extent than both municipal schools and other private schools. It also found that teachers have felt pressured by the school management to give higher grades.
”I am very saddened by each of these examples and take them very seriously,” says Marcus Strömberg, the CEO of Academedia, during the interview with Ekot.
Following the investigation, Academedia introduced new measures to combat grade inflation, according to Strömberg. ”We will now have even clearer regulations regarding these matters. I have just received the results of last year’s grading, and I can say that there are major differences. So, these efforts have yielded results,” he states.
In the interview with Ekot, Strömberg also stated that Academedia will not adhere to the government’s and the Sweden Democrats’ proposal that school personnel should be obliged to report undocumented children. ”I think it is wrong for teachers and school staff to have the task of identifying individuals who do not have the right to stay in Sweden. Being a teacher is a great responsibility, and this risks being severely affected. This needs to be resolved in a different way,” says Strömberg.
