Sweden used to be a beacon of hope for social democrats, now it is more often the inspiration of reformist conservatives – not least in respect of its free schools.
In Britain, the first free schools are only just opening their doors, but in Sweden they’ve been around for years, with almost 400 now established in a country of less than ten million people. What’s more the Swedes have been carefully studying the impact of these schools on the whole population. In an important blog for the Spectator, Fraser Nelson reviews the results:
So free schools work for everybody, not just those who attend them. That, however, is not the only lesson to be learned here.
Firstly, there’s the importance of basing government policy on hard evidence:
"In Sweden, they don’t have to guess", says Fraser Nelson. We should stop guessing in this country too. Throwing billions at various government programmes without systematically assessing the evidence for their effectiveness is obvious lunacy. The under-reported efforts of the current British Government to end to this thrashing about in the dark may turn out to be one of its most important legacies.
Of course, evidence requires experiments – and Fraser Nelson emphasises the importance of getting free schools off the ground in the first place:
But perhaps the most important lesson of all is that meaningful reforms require patience. Here’s a direct quote from the report (.pdf) itself:
Important reforms often get off to an awkward start – the election of Police and Crime Commissioners being a recent example. However, instead of the flaky reaction we’ve seen from some quarters of the Conservative Party, we need to realise that patience – much like reform – requires careful cultivation.