Sweden’s ruling party vows to ban religious schools

STOCKHOLM, Sweden — Sweden’s Social Democratic party, which leads a minority government, on Tuesday pledges to ban all religious charter schools in order to tackle segregation in the country, which took in a record number of asylum seekers in recent years.

“We have to knock down segregation to keep Sweden together…school segregation must therefore also be broken down,” Ardalan Shekarabi, a leading member of the Social Democrats, tells a news conference in Stockholm.

The proposal is not backed by the majority of the parliament at this stage, as most of the charter schools are Christian. The announcement is largely seen as a symbolic move six months ahead of the September 9 general election.

Shekarabi, who is the minister for public administration, says his party, the nation’s largest, hopes to gain voters’ support on the issue in the poll.

Out of the 71 primary and upper secondary (for students aged 16 to 18) religious charter schools — five percent of all charter schools in Sweden — 59 are Christian, 11 are Muslim and one is Jewish.

— AFP