In Sweden, one-third of foreign-born individuals possess such poor Swedish language skills that they are considered unemployable and thus reliant on welfare. At the same time, statistics show that the majority of primary school students who were born in Sweden but learn Swedish as a second language are also lagging behind in fluency. Many factors suggest that segregation and growing up in isolated residential areas significantly contribute to difficulties in mastering the language.

According to the OECD’s 2023 report, in Sweden one in three adults born abroad lack the reading skills necessary to access information and succeed in the labor market.

This means hundreds of thousands of people are excluded from employment and depend on social benefits.

Among those born in Sweden, only 4 per cent fall into this category. This includes ethnic Swedes with reading or language acquisition challenges, but the majority who lack sufficient Swedish language skills are typically children of migrants. Data from Skolverket (Sweden’s National Agency for Education) show that Swedish as a Second Language (SVA) is no longer mainly taught to recent arrivals. The trend is moving in the wrong direction, as more children born in Sweden are lacking the Swedish language proficiency needed to succeed in society.

In 2019–2020, 40% of SVA students were born in Sweden. Five years later, in the 2024–2025 school year, that share has risen to 53%.

One likely cause for why many Sweden-born children still require SVA education is increasing housing segregation. In so-called “vulnerable areas,” where the majority of residents are of foreign origin, it is often possible to get by without knowing Swedish.

Children growing up in such environments are therefore not exposed to the same linguistic conditions as others, even though they were born in the country. However, Radda Barnen (Save the Children), which raised attention to this issue, holds a different view, according to Swedish news outlet Samnytt. In their view, the number of Swedish-born students with insufficient Swedish is not increasing. Instead, they argue that schools are mistakenly placing students with immigrant backgrounds into SVA classes, even if they speak Swedish fluently.

They do not explain why schools would do this, but Radda Barnen concludes that such misclassification reinforces these students’ negative development in a discriminatory way and hinders them from reaching their full language potential.

However, statistics over the past five years show clear negative trends.

Proportion of Swedish-born students in SVA classes:

• 2019/20: 40%
• 2020/21: 42%
• 2021/22: 44%
• 2022/23: 46%
• 2023/24: 49%
• 2024/25: 53%

These developments suggest that language development issues are not improving within certain groups — in fact, they are deteriorating.

Lack of Language Proficiency Is a Problem across Western Europe

As V4NA previously reported, in response to an unprecedented influx of school-aged asylum seekers, Austrian Education Minister Christoph Wiederkehr announced a six-month orientation course for newly arrived children and teens. Many of them have never attended school before and not only do they not speak German — in many cases, they cannot read, write, or count.

According to the Freedom Party (FPO), however, this is merely treating the symptoms.

Under the new system, children first attend a six-month orientation class where they learn basic German to help with communication, essential school skills such as writing, using scissors, and classroom etiquette, along with core societal values like respect, equality, and tolerance.