Just how free are Swedish free schools?

Last year I scoffed at the idea that state schools in Sweden were free from indoctrination:

Björn, the ABBA pop star, wants to ban independent religious schools in Sweden. Why? He gives this explanation:

Above all, children should be kept away from anything that bears even the slightest whiff of indoctrination. In fact, freedom from indoctrination ought to be a basic human right for all children.

I burst out laughing when I read this. There is no place in the world where people are more indoctrinated than in Sweden. And they are not indoctrinated by churches but by the secular state.

I think I was right in this assessment. It seems that even the "free" and "independent" schools in Sweden are heavily subject to the state ideology. Consider the case of the "free school" located in Hörby in the south of Sweden. It was visited recently by the school inspectorate. The result?

The chemistry books used by the school were declared anachronistic, not because there was anything wrong with the chemistry being taught in the books, but because the books weren't adequately multicultural or feminist. It seems that the names in the chemistry books were "almost exclusively Western" and therefore offensive to the state ideology. The inspectorate also criticised the school for its lack of dialogue on gender and ethnicity.

The principal of the school, Kerstin Lindberg, hastened to reassure the officials responsible for monitoring any deviation from the state ideology that the lapse would be rectified:

The literature will be evaluated and new books will be purchased. [The school] will also initiate a clear equality plan for staff and invite a lecturer in gender and ethnicity issues.

The school has been given until March 3 to re-educate itself.

Really, what is the point of having an "independent" school that is so obviously under the thumb of the state? You may as well get your indoctrination straight from the source, from a state school.

As for Björn, those costumes he wore back in the 70s must have cut off some of the circulation to his brain. He claims that "children should be kept away from anything that bears even the slightest whiff of indoctrination" but remains oblivious to the fact that the great indoctrinator in Sweden is not some little religious school, it's the liberal state.