The third country that will be part in this comparative analysis is Sweden. Sweden has been an immigration country especially for refugees for long. 2015 marks the last peak of refugee immigrants to Sweden (about 167 000 people, Migrationsverket 2016). Swedish schools have full autonomy in hiring their teaching and non-teaching staff, but for a permanent position since 2013 a teacher legitimation is needed (see Skolverket 2017). This teacher legitimation is issued by the Swedish National Agency for Education. Even though Sweden educates and employs teachers for lower and upper secondary level in two subjects, the full autonomy of schools with regard to staff employment loosens this demand on teachers. As mentioned above, the teaching legitimation is necessary for a permanent position. Non-permanent jobs can be given to any person seen suitable by the school principal. Sweden has for long had the challenge that their teaching staff has not finished a teacher education exam. Therefore, there have been different programmes for further qualification for teachers. VAL (Further Education for Teachers) is one of them and is offered to teachers already working at school. Is comprises of courses with the amount of 120 ECTS: ULV (Further Education for Foreign Teachers) is a programme specifically designed for teachers that have a teacher exam from other countries. Since the start of the programme in 2007, 1500 participants have attended the programme (Stockholms University 2017). Also, there is traditionally a programme for people with a subject exam (matching subjects at school) who want to change career paths and become teacher. This KPU-programme (Completing Pedagogical studies, studera.nu 2016) is especially open for PhD graduates who can even get funding for this kind of further education. All other programmes/participants have to be able to finance themselves while studying. For refugees, these already existing paths of further qualification can be a way to obtain a teacher legitimation and into working in Swedish schools. To enable refugee teachers to choose whether to enter further teacher qualification, some universities like Stockholm University have started introductory courses (in Arabic) for refugee teachers (Stockholms University 2016). Courses cover Swedish, pedagogy in Sweden, the Swedish school system etc. At the moment, research is scarce on how refugee teacher students enter the different programmes and how refugee teachers enter the Swedish school system. Also, a comparison to non-refugee migrant teachers can give valuable insights into possibilities for foreign (refugee) teachers in Sweden.

Migrationsverket (2016). Statistik Asylsökande. Online http://www.migrationsverket.se/Om-Migrationsverket/Statistik/Aktuell-statistik.html Skolverket 2017: Regelverk kring lärarlegitimation. Online http://www.skolverket.se/kompetens-och-fortbildning/lararlegitimation/regelverk Stockholms University 2017: Utländska lärares vidareutbildning (ULV). Online http://www.su.se/lararutbildningar/l%C3%A4rare/utl%C3%A4ndska-l%C3%A4rares-vidareutbildning-ulv Stockholms University 2016: Snabbspåret för nyanlända lärare och förskollärare. Online http://www.su.se/lararutbildningar/l%C3%A4rare/snabbsp%C3%A5ret-f%C3%B6r-nyanl%C3%A4nda-l%C3%A4rare Studera.nu 2016: Kompletterande pedagogisk utbildning – KPU. Online http://www.studera.nu/att-valja-utbildning/lararutbildningar/kpu/