Wednesday,
February 08, 2012
15 Shevat, 5772
News
France
UK
Germany
Western Europe
Eastern Europe
EU-Israel affairs
US 2008 ELECTION
Iran - Holocaust
Conflict in Gaza
Voices
Culture
In Depth
Mideast Crisis
World Cup
On Anglo Jewry
Week at a glance
France Election
EU and Annapolis Summit
News from outside of Europe
Holocaust Remembrance Day
Mumbai Terror
DURBAN II
WILLIAMSON
Stories from our Readers
The Calendar
Links
advertisement
wagerworks software

Swedish Minister: Holocaust must be mandatory in school curriculum
Updated: 11/May/2007 14:54
Swedish Schools Minister Jan Bjoerklund
Page tools
Email to friend
Print this page
Bookmark this page
Add your view

STOCKHOLM (AFP)---Swedish Schools Minister Jan Bjoerklund has said he would recommend that the Holocaust and crimes committed in the name of communism in the Soviet Union be mandatory elements of the history curriculum.

He made the statement after a poll, published on Wednesday, revealed that a majority of Swedish teenagers don’t know what communism is and don’t know which countries neighbour their own.

The poll has raised questions about Sweden’s education system.

Ninety percent of teens aged 15 to 20 don’t know which foreign capital is closest to Stockholm, 90 percent don’t know what the Gulag is, and 40 percent think communism has increased prosperity in the world.

"They have a lack of understanding for basic concepts such as dictatorships and democracy, and that is unsettling. There must be a major change in their level of knowledge, and schools in particular must take responsibility," Camilla Andersson, the head of the Information About Communism organisation that commissioned the study, told Swedish news agency TT.

‘Very worrying’

The Schools Minister agreed.

"It is very worrying that Swedish history teaching is so limited. Many people have suspected that there are problems with (students’) knowledge of history," he told TT.

The results of the study, published in daily Dagens Nyheter also showed that 50 percent of the 1,004 teens questioned didn’t know that Berlin was the capital of a country bordering the Baltic Sea, 82 percent didn’t think Belarus was a dictatorship and 43 percent said they thought communism had claimed fewer than a million victims in the 20th century.

Fifty-six percent said they didn’t know if Western market economies were democratic societies, and 22 percent said communism was a democratic social structure.


Add Your View Email to friend Print this page Bookmark this page
Latest Articles
German court caps Jewish ghetto pension claims
French government walks out of parliament after 'Nazi' taunt
EU will not recall its ambassador in Damascus, ‘important to have people to follow the situation’
EU says it will continue giving money to the Palestinian Authority despite deal with Hamas
Hungarian foreign ministry condemns Jobbik MP’s comments questioning the Holocaust and comparing Israel to a Nazi system
ADL welcomes US decision to close its embassy in Damascus
French President Nicolas Sarkozy guest of honor at Wednesday’s Jewish representative body annual dinner