Nearly 100 municipalities struggle to find qualified maths teachers

Nearly 100 Swedish municipalities say they are struggling to recruit qualified maths teachers.

The hiring problem can reach directly into the lesson. Jonas Bergman Wallin, school director in Kristinehamn, told an Ekot survey that teaching risks becoming more tied to textbooks when teachers are not qualified in the subject.

The warning comes as Sweden confronts weak results. Swedish pupils’ maths performance has fallen to its lowest level since the PISA tests began 25 years ago, Sveriges Radio reported.

The survey does not mean every school in those municipalities lacks a qualified maths teacher. It shows a broad recruitment difficulty whose practical consequence is local: whether pupils get subject-specialist teaching in the classroom.

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