2025-05-30

Sweden's Digitalisation Strategy 2025–2030: Municipalities foot the bill when school does not lead to working life

The Swedish government's recently launched "Sweden's Digitalisation Strategy 2025–2030" paints a vision of a digital Sweden characterised by citizen benefit, competitiveness and efficiency. As a founder of Skoolie, with a daily focus on education, digitalisation and the labour market of the future, I welcome the strategy we have all been waiting for. But for those of you working in Sweden's municipalities, there is reason to examine the strategy with an extra watchful eye. Despite good intentions, a deeper reading reveals crucial omissions that risk making no difference at all for the majority of young people in Sweden.

General goals of "digital competence" are not enough

The strategy states that "Sweden shall strengthen the basic, broad and cutting-edge competence of its citizens" and identifies "digital competence" as one of five strategic areas. That is commendable – we used a similar model at IVA when we wrote the report Aha! 2022 on promoting joyful learning. The Swedish National Agency for Education (Skolverket) is also mentioned as the "authority with sector responsibility for the digitalisation of the school system", and it is noted that the agency shall pay particular attention to the risks and opportunities that digitalisation brings. The problem is that the strategy stops at these overarching statements without presenting a concrete, nationally coordinated and funded plan. A plan for how digitalisation in compulsory and upper secondary schools is actually to be lifted beyond today's fragmentation and administrative challenges – challenges that are even highlighted in the strategy itself.

There are certainly interim goals, such as "Everyone shall be digitally included, which means that everyone shall have the opportunity to acquire basic digital skills". But how is this to be realised in practice for a student in year 3, or an upper secondary student on a vocational programme? Where are the national investments in:

Equivalent digital infrastructure in all schools, regardless of a municipality's size or finances?
Professional development for teachers that goes deeper than basic IT skills and focuses on digital pedagogy, source criticism in an AI era (for example, search the internet for videos from Google Veo 3) and the use of digital tools to promote learning?
Quality-assured digital learning resources that are pedagogically relevant and accessible to all?

Without this, Skolverket's sector responsibility becomes a challenge to shoulder fully, and municipalities are left to navigate and fund this crucial foundation for all future competence on their own. The goal that "Sweden shall be the best in the world at using the opportunities of digitalisation" feels distant if we do not invest properly in the first 10–12 years of our children's education. The "digitalisation of welfare" must include the school as a central welfare institution with specific digital needs, not merely as an administrative unit.

The skills supply chain is a black box

The strategy devotes considerable space to "digital competence in the labour market" and the need for "access to cutting-edge digital competence to increase for continued strong innovation and competitiveness". It speaks of strengthening STEM education, investing in research and development in AI and other emerging technologies, and the importance of lifelong learning. Skolverket's role in the foundations is mentioned. All of this is necessary to equip Sweden. But then it stops. A completely central actor for connecting the education system's "output" with the labour market's "input" – the Swedish Public Employment Service (Arbetsförmedlingen) – is all but invisible in the strategy's discussion of digitalisation for skills supply. A search of the document yields no hits for "Arbetsförmedlingen" in contexts concerning its own digital transformation or its role in guiding students with modern, data-driven tools, despite a youth unemployment rate of 23.6% according to Statistics Sweden (SCB) [1].

This is not just a small gap; it is a potential systemic failure in the entire skills supply chain:

How are students to navigate effectively from education to relevant jobs and career paths if the authority meant to facilitate this transition is not a leading digital actor?
How are we to match the competence being created (through the education initiatives the strategy vaguely refers to) with the actual and rapidly changing needs of business, if Arbetsförmedlingen lacks sufficient support for digital systems for analysis, forecasting and matching? The digitalisation of business that the strategy calls for requires an equally digitalised partner on the public authority side.
What support will municipal guidance counsellors, and those working with the municipal activity responsibility, receive if the national labour market authority lags behind digitally? The pressure on municipalities to compensate for this becomes unreasonable.

Without Skolverket and Arbetsförmedlingen at the forefront of digitalisation and the use of AI for matching and guidance, many of the strategy's good intentions around skills supply risk coming to nothing. It becomes a chain with a crucial broken link.

The municipality's role: building bridges across the strategy's gaps

Sweden's new digitalisation strategy points out a direction, but it also leaves you in the municipalities with significant challenges in handling the gaps that arise. It is about ensuring practical digitalisation in compulsory and upper secondary schools that goes beyond buzzwords, navigating the ethical questions surrounding young people's digital identities, and compensating for the lack of a fully digitalised employment service by guiding young people towards the future.

A student who does not receive the right digital tools and education in school, and whose digital privacy is not protected, will be less well equipped for a labour market they must also navigate without guidance. At Skoolie, we continue to monitor these issues and support municipalities in their vital work. Local commitment, innovation and strong voices are needed to ensure that no one is left behind in the digital transition – from the very first day of school and throughout working life.

Rasmus Häggkvist

[1]
SCB