Last year, the government introduced a grant for fiction and non-fiction literature, targeting preschool, preschool class, and elementary school. But from 2025, the grant will also cover middle school, high school, and upper secondary school.
In addition, the grant will increase from 176 million kronor to 480 million kronor.
We're getting a new law this summer that says we need to have staffed libraries, and then they also need to be filled with books, says Minister of Education Lotta Edholm (L), who thinks that the current situation "looks pretty bad" in many schools and preschools.
They are often depleted of children's literature in preschool, and that's where much of the work begins to get children interested in books and reading aloud.
Have been naive
Of the 176 million kronor allocated last year, almost 168 million kronor have been granted. That corresponds to approximately 840,000 books, according to the government's calculation – assuming that one book costs 200 kronor.
In that case, the new funds could lead to 2.4 million books for students. Together with the recently established reading lists, the government hopes to get children and young people to read more.
Lotta Edholm thinks that people have been naive about young people's reading habits.
We still have a huge problem with myths about being able to read with both eyes and ears. But there has been an awakening in recent years, and it's essential that we catch up from a political perspective.
Lack of librarians
According to Lotta Edholm, this is a way to begin building up school libraries. However, trained school librarians are still lacking, but she hopes that the investment will also spark young people's interest in the profession.
This year, the literature grant has simultaneously been reduced by one million kronor. Doesn't the government's reading promotion efforts also need to consider the cycle of literature?
This targets children and young people to change their reading habits, and then school libraries are crucial. Then you can hope that if children read more, they might read more as adults eventually, and then the regular public libraries will likely experience a renaissance.
Should reading promoters worry that the sale of printed books is decreasing?
But we're seeing a significant increase in purchases of children's books. And if you invest nearly half a billion kronor in buying fiction, it increases the demand for books. This is a supplement that benefits children's book authors and the sale of children's books.
The National Agency for Education and the Cultural Council recently presented reading lists with Swedish and international fiction works intended to support preschool teachers and teachers.
The government is allocating 218 million kronor to school libraries from 2025. From 2026, 433 million kronor will be allocated annually.
A requirement for schools to have staffed school libraries was proposed in an investigation in 2021. The investigation also proposed the possibility for teachers to further educate themselves to work as school librarians. The same investigator (Gustav Fridolin, former MP spokesperson and Minister of Education) also proposed a legal right for students to have access to textbooks.
In connection with the government's announcement about school libraries, the trade union DIK reiterated its demand to double the number of places in library education programs. DIK wants to see one librarian per 300 students in elementary school and one per 400 students in upper secondary school, according to DIK's independent member magazine Magasin K.
