Sweden: 160 million euros to expand and improve educational facilities in the City of Malmö
The CEB supports the City of Malmö which aims at ensuring access to high quality education for all children regardless of their social background or birth place.
The Council of Europe Development Bank (CEB) approved on 30 September 2016 a € 160 million loan to the City of Malmö, Sweden’s third largest city, for the partial financing of investments aimed at improving and expanding compulsory school facilities throughout the city.
Malmö is a fast-growing city of 323 000 inhabitants, over one-third of whom were born abroad. In the period from 2016 to 2019 the city forecasts that its population will grow by 33 000 persons, at least 25% of whom are expected to be asylum-seekers aged below 15 years. To accommodate the increasing number of its student population, and given that education plays an important role in the integration of migrants, there is a need to rehabilitate and expand school facilities.
CEB funds will be used for a programme aiming to create 8 000 new places in compulsory education for children aged from 6 to 15 years, which represents an increase of existing capacity by almost 30%.
More specifically, the programme is aimed at the refurbishment and expansion of compulsory school buildings where facilities have become obsolete or inadequate, and also at the construction of new education facilities. Expected to benefit from this programme are the pupil population of Malmö, particularly the students in the city’s 70 municipal schools and smaller education facilities for children with special needs, and the wider community.
Commenting on the loan, CEB Governor Rolf Wenzel said: “This is the first CEB loan to the City of Malmö. It is a pleasure to be co-financing a school renovation and expansion programme which will greatly contribute to the social integration of migrant and refugee children, while also helping Malmö to tackle demographic changes.”
