Generally, teenagers are much more inclined to choose a college preparatory program than a vocational program. This academic year is no exception.
However, a small change can be seen in the Swedish National Agency for Education's statistics: For the second year in a row, first-year students in vocational programs have increased slightly.
Total, with all three age groups, vocational programs are growing by 3 percent, while college preparatory programs are increasing by barely half a percent.
Hotel instead of healthcare
But despite the growth of vocational programs, the distribution of students in education would need to be balanced based on the labor market's needs. The Swedish National Agency for Education provides some examples:
Construction and installation need to grow, but instead, the program has 10 percent fewer first-year students compared to the previous year. Healthcare and social care also need to grow, but have a barely noticeable increase in new students.
The Sales and Service program should shrink, but is growing by 12 percent, and Hotel and Tourism should remain at the current level but is growing by as much as 17 percent.
It's positive that more students are getting interested in vocational programs, but the influx is not quite going in the right direction, says Anders Håkansson, unit manager at the Swedish National Agency for Education.
Alternative planning
From this year on, municipalities must plan their program offerings more based on the labor market's needs, according to a new provision in the Education Act.
In other words: upper secondary school should educate more students for healthcare and industry and fewer for hairdressing or social sciences. Not everything will be turned upside down at once, it's best to add.
This will take place over a very long time and at a fairly slow pace. It's a interplay between what students choose and how many places are made available on the different programs, says Anders Håkansson.
The biggest concern is not the current distribution between different programs. Anders Håkansson mentions, for example, that the healthcare and social care program has difficulty attracting 16-year-olds, but is in high demand at adult education.
What he sees as most worrying is that the number of students who did not become eligible for a national program has increased. This academic year, over 37,000 students are studying on an introductory program, an increase of 2 percent since last academic year. It's the first time in eight years that there's an increase.
Upper secondary school has a total of 372,000 students this academic year.
Of these, 335,000 are on a national program: 67 percent on a college preparatory program and 33 percent on a vocational program.
The largest national programs are college preparatory. The largest is social sciences, with nearly 66,000 students this academic year. The second-largest is the economics program, with nearly 63,000 students.
The largest vocational program is electrical and energy with nearly 17,000 students, followed by construction and installation with over 13,000.
In addition to students on national programs, there are over 37,000 students on an introductory program. This is where students who did not meet the eligibility requirements for a national program are referred.
Source: Swedish National Agency for Education
