How Södertälje is turning the school crisis around: students are now achieving record grades

SÖDERTÄLJE, Sweden — After years of intensive efforts to improve school results, the Swedish city of Södertälje is now seeing tangible progress. In the spring semester of 2025, ninth-grade students (~age 15-16) achieved record exam scores. In Sweden, ninth grade marks the final exam year of the compulsory education program called ‘Grundskola’. When passing the national Grundskola exams, most students continue their studies in upper secondary education. 

Behind the better results in Södertälje’s schools lies a long-term, targeted approach, made possible in part by the fact that the schools were not subject to government budget cuts. 

Swedish national broadcaster SVT interviewed teachers and Syriac students at Wasaskolan, a high school in the majority Syriac neighborhood of Geneta. The school that raised student performance from just under 80 percent in upper secondary school eligibility in 2020 to 86.8 percent. Jenny Stanser, head of the primary schools in Södertälje municipality, told SVT “We don’t have any school that is below 80 percent eligibility. It’s almost even more fun than having the highest results.” 

Syriac students Mariaan Khazzoum and Natalia Duros, both graduating the ninth grade at Wasaskolan, told SVT; “When we had suggestions for improvements, they listened to us.” “You are proud of yourself,” says Mariaan Khazzoum.

Sweden has a sizable Syriac population of some 150,000 Syriacs, a third of them lives in Södertälje. It is one of the largest ethnic groups in Sweden. Syriacs are very successful and integrated with major Syriac communities in Södertälje (~35 thousand Syriacs, Örebro, Gothenburg, and Greater Stockholm. With Tony Haddou (Left Party) and Yusuf Aydin (Christian Democrats), the Syriac people have two parliamentarians in the Swedish Riskdag.