Emanuel's Blog

Among the international students studying in Sweden, there are those who would like to pursue a career here as well. And among those, there are the ambitious kind who actually choose to learn Swedish while completing their Master’s degree. I know one of these students.

What do you do, if you’re an international student spending a lazy summer in Sweden? The kind of person described above chooses to take a summer course in Swedish at Folkuniversitetet. Classes are mostly comprised of other students, or people with titles such as M.D., researcher or engineer. My friend studied for a month at Folkuniversitetet, reached level B1+ and can now interact almost fluently in everyday language.

But what do you do when autumn begins and expenses start to pile up? As a monument to everything that’s wrong with Sweden there is SFI — Swedish for immigrants. So, you try it out. After all, Sweden with its massive immigration and language being the key to get to know any culture, should have a well-developed beginner education in Swedish. Here’s what happens instead.

You state (in Swedish) that you’ve been studying Swedish for 6 weeks. They put you in class C (equivalent to an entry-level course at Folkuniversitetet). Classes here are mostly comprised of immigrants from various nations in conflict, illiteracy is common, income is zero and ambition an unknown word.

You try to argument to the people in charge (in Swedish) for the fact that you have already studied this level. –”But you must take this class before you can go to level D.” What if you would insist you already know everything that is taught? –”It’s good to rehearse.” What if you complete a whole course’s material in one study session? –”This is too much for us to correct.” What if you don’t have anything to do, since you’re already 12 chapters ahead of everybody else? –”Here’s 40 pages with basic verb forms.” What if you complete the compendium in an hour?

On and on it goes. Any direct question is merely answered with that smiling silence which only a brain dead shell of a person can muster out.

The extent to which ambition is crushed, encouragement non-existent and one’s intellect insulted is criminal. While there are laws forbidding the exact same treatment towards the less abled people, someone with even a trace of ambition is effectively broken in the silent name of jealousy. Which is almost encouraged by the standards of judgement followed by the ignorant idiots in charge.

Teaching is supposed to be one of the finest professions around. But this is sickening.

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