The Ministry of Education, Science and Culture in Iceland introduced a new education policy in 2021 (Parliament Resolution) and the First Action plan 2021–2024 (hereafter the Action Plan) for the new policy was published last year ( Ministry of Education, Science and Culture, 2021). We see this document as the most significant document on educational policy in Iceland  since the publication of the national curriculum guide for pre-, compulsory-, and secondary schools in 2011 and 2013. In this presentation we will explore how this official paper came about and it‘s content.  

The background and the preliminaries to the new policy and the Action Plan can be traced to 2016, when the Icelandic educational authorities asked the European Agency for Special Needs and Inclusive Education to write a report on the state of inclusive education in Iceland. For several years there has been a growing debate among teachers and principals that the policy of inclusive education has never really been implemented and teachers claim not to have clear ideas of what the policy entails for them as teachers. At the same time Iceland had put itself at the forefront of having very few students at the compulsory school level (age 6–16) in special education schools. For instance, in autumn 2021, there were only three special schools at the compulsory level with 203 students (approximately 0.43%), according to Statistics Iceland (2022). 

In 2017, the European Agency published the report: Education for all in Iceland. External audit of the Icelandic system for inclusive education (European Agency for Special Needs and Inclusive Education, 2017). The report was followed up by meetings and discussions across the country with stakeholders and the school community resulted in the report: Education for the future. Actions and measures taken in the wake of a series of meetings on inclusive education and the formation of an education policy until 2030 (Ministry of Education, Science and Culture, 2020a). 

In the later stages of the process (in spring 2020), the OECD was consulted regarding the formation and implementation of the new education policy and an OECD report on the implementation of an education policy was published (Ministry of Education, Science and Culture, 2020b).  

OECD is one of the most influential organisations on national education policies (Iceland included) as they develop framework and indicators that nations are encouraged to follow. Through the years OECD has been criticised for focusing almost solely on systems, economic factors and competition between countries instead of looking at education as a common responsibility and cooperation. Bjarnadóttir (2022) explored the most recent educational policies by OECD and UNESCO; one of her findings “is that the OECD’s future policy does not represent a convincing turn towards a humanitarian emphasis” (p. 10).  

Goals of the presentation are to:  

• trace international influences on the current Icelandic policy making outlined above. 

• analyze the discourse of the first Action Plan 2021–2024 of the new education policy. 

We first familiarized ourselves with the events leading up to the Action Plan’s creation in 2021. We also familiarized ourselves with the document itself, which we decide would be the only text for scrutiny. For this purpose, we used a historical discourse analysis (Jóhannesson, 2006, 2010). The main characteristic of this method is to ask how rather than why it is well suited to describing one or more documents. Another point of emphasis is to note what is not revealed (silences) in the document concerned. Furthermore, the method requires each policy document to be regarded as an independent unit with the researcher attempting to read between the lines of the document what it fails to reveal. We singled out several questions and read the documents with them in mind: What does the document look like? Who is the document intended for? What is the story line in the document? What are the main themes of the document? Does the document contain contradictions? Will the strategy prove effective – in what respects and relating to whom? What is not included? What is the document silent about?

There was considerable impact of the European Agency report in the Icelandic education discourse. This impact seems to be quite direct in the sense that its 2017 report instigated major policy making efforts that have been described above. Both the European Agency report and the OECD consultation in 2020 are also an important background to the efforts apparent in the Action Plan 2021–2024 of the ministry. The Action Plan is 22 pages and is somewhat unapproachable since it neither contains a table of contents nor does it offer a preface or a form of elucidation as to the context of its publication. It includes a compilation of proposals: It specifies nine separate actions, each of which is divided into several sections, thus making up a total of 41 work components. The components include a professional knowledge centre, a new school development team, an annual contribution to school development projects, and the strengthening of three funds. Nine of those actions must involve considerable costs. In a nutshell, the Action Plan 2021–2024 is a compilation of actions and work components with little or no prioritization sequence, nor is it placed in the context of other current policy documents. When plans for two new laws were published 17 October 2022 by the governmental consultative board a priority arrangement appeared, however, to the effect that the first two actions were of highest importance; on the one hand Planned legislation – school services and, on the other, Planned legislation – a new organization (Ministry of Education and Children, 2022a, 2022b). When this proposal was written in January 2023, the legislation proposals have not been put forward to Althingi, the Parliament. While the focus in the presentation, will be on the Action Plan, we will consider these legislation proposals or laws if they have been passed.

Bjarnadóttir, V. (2022). Tilgangur og framtíð menntunar í ljósi stefnumörkunar OECD og UNESCO til 2030 [The purpose and future of education in OECD’s and UNESCO’s 2030 educational policies]. Netla. DOI: https://doi.org/10.24270/serritnetla.2022.83 European Agency for Special Needs and Inclusive Education (2017). Education for all in Iceland. External audit of the Icelandic system for inclusive education. Translated from English. Ministry of Education, Science and Culture. https://www.stjornarradid.is/lisalib/getfile.aspx?itemid=cca962f5-be4f-11e7-9420-005056bc530c Jóhannesson, I. Á. (2006). Leitað að mótsögnum: Um verklag við orðræðugreiningu. [Looking for contradictions. On methods of discourse analysis. In Rannveig Traustadóttir (Ed.), Fötlun. Hugmyndir og aðferðir á nýju fræðasviði [Disability. Ideas and methods relating to a new academic field (pp. 178–195). University of Iceland Press Jóhannesson, I. Á. (2010). The politics of historical discourse analysis: a qualitative research method? Discourse: Studies in the Cultural Politics of Education, 31(2), 251–264, DOI: 10.1080/01596301003679768 Ministry of Education, Science and Culture. (2019). Menntun fyrir alla – horft fram á veginn. Skýrsla unnin fyrir mennta- og menningarmálaráðuneyti [Education for all – the road ahead]. https://www.stjornarradid.is/library/01--Frettatengt---myndir-og-skrar/MRN/MFA_horft%20fram%20a%20veginn_starfshops_vefur.pdf Ministry of Education, Science and Culture (2020a). Menntun til framtíðar. Aðgerðir og viðbrögð í kjölfar fundaraðar um menntun fyrir alla og mótun menntastefnu til 2030 [Education for the future. Actions and responses relating to a series of meetings on education for all and the formation of an education policy until 2030] https://www.stjornarradid.is/library/01--Frettatengt---myndir-og-skrar/MRN/Menntun%20til%20framtidar_skyrsla_17012020.pdf Ministry of Education, Science and Culture. (2020b). Menntastefna2030. Skýrsla OECD um innleiðingu menntastefnu [Education policy2030. OECD report on the implementation of an education policy (Icelandic translation)] https://www.stjornarradid.is/library/01--Frettatengt---myndir-og-skrar/MRN/Iceland%20Policy%20Perspectives_%C3%9E%C3%BD%C3%B0ing_Loka%C3%BAtg%C3%A1fa%207.%20j%C3%BAl%C3%AD%202021.pdf Ministry of Education, Science and Culture. (2021) Menntastefna 2030. Fyrsta aðgerðaáætlun 2021–2024 [Education policy 2030. First action plan 2021-2024]. https://www.stjornarradid.is/library/01--Frettatengt---myndir-og-skrar/MRN/Menntastefna_2030_fyrsta%20adgerdar%c3%a1%c3%a6tlun.pdf Ministry of Education and Children (2022a). Áform um lagasetningu – skólaþjónusta [Planning for legislation – school services]. https://samradsgatt.island.is/oll-mal/$Cases/Details/?id=3308+ Ministry of Education and Children (2022b). Áform um lagasetningu – ný stofnun [Planning for legislation – a new institution]. https://samradsgatt.island.is/oll-mal/$Cases/Details/?id=3308+ Statistics Iceland. (2022). Compulsory school students according to grade and school, 2001–2021. https://px.hagstofa.is/pxis/pxweb/is/Samfelag/Samfelag__skolamal__2_grunnskolastig__0_gsNemendur/SKO02102.px/table/tableViewLayout1/?rxid=aca68d79-a619-4f5e-b346-b30faf0d2dfd Þingsályktun um menntastefnu fyrir árin 2021–2030 nr 16/151 [Parliamentary resolution on education policy for the years 2021-2030]. https://www.althingi.is/altext/151/s/1111.html