Summary

Board of Educations’ national digitalisation strategy. The report is based on a survey aimed at teachers, preschool staff and principals. The purpose of the report is to provide a collective description of how the activities in the studied school forms are developing in relation to the objectives of the national strategy. The strategy contains three focus areas: 1. Digital competence for everyone in the school system; 2. Equitable access and use; and 3. Research and follow-up on the possibilities of digitalisation.

To reach the first goal, it is required that staff who work with children and students have sufficient digital competence, that they can choose appropriate digital learning resources and to use the possibilities of digitalisation in teaching. The report shows that more principals have developed digitalization plans today compared to before; that it is common for computers and tablets to be used in preschools, but there are differences in how often preschool staff work with the children's digital skills. (It turns out that less than half of the preschool staff and teachers surveyed consider themselves to have sufficient knowledge to choose and use digital tools for children and students in need of support); and that school libraries are used to a greater extent to develop students' digital competence in municipally run upper secondary schools than in private ones.

The objective for the second focus area is that children, students, and staff should have good and equal access to digital tools and resources with the aim of improving education and making operations more efficient. The report shows that access to computers and tablets in most forms of school is generally good, but that there are differences between private and municipally run preschools and schools; that most teachers use digital tools to adapt their teaching, but not everyone has access to the tools they need. (For example, just over two out of ten teachers state that they do not have access to the digital tools they need to design the teaching for students who need extra adaptations or special support); and that many have problems with faulty computers and internet connections but also that access to IT support has increased and more people are quickly getting in touch with technical IT support to resolve technical issues.

The third focus area's overarching goal is that research and feedback that support the development of operations and efforts must be carried out with the aim of contributing to increased goal fulfilment and developed digital competence. This area is not as developed as the other two in the report but shows that it is more common for principals in municipally run schools to have access to a person who works with disseminating knowledge about research on digitalisation compared to privately run schools.

Inclusion and Digitalisation: The content of the report regards digitalization in the Swedish education domain and is therefore exhaustive. Inclusion is however mainly discussed in terms of equal accessibility to and competence of using digital tools rather than inclusive teaching. Special needs education is mainly mentioned when the objects of the national strategy are discussed, rather than in the results of the report. In sum, when special needs are discussed as a result it is as a lack of competence and digital tools.

Feasibility for this project: The report provides a statistical overview of current (2021) opinions about the digitalisation of the Swedish school systems in accordance with the national strategy. The report give insights into gaps and developments of how digital competence and tools is both implemented and wished for. This is valuable when deciding contents and approaches for further development.