When people talk about Sweden’s shortage of special-education staff, the number that gets cited is usually one: not enough specialists for the students who need them. That is true, but it misses something structural. Sweden actually has two distinct roles in this space, and the shortage affects them very differently. Understanding the difference matters for any family or school trying to work out why support feels so hard to access.
Two roles, two different things they can do
A speciallärare (special teacher) holds a teaching qualification alongside their specialist training. They are authorised to teach directly, to sit with a student, work through reading difficulties with them, break a maths concept into smaller parts, build the structured repetition that many students with ADHD or dyslexia need. They are the people who can deliver the adapted instruction a student’s åtgärdsprogram describes.
A specialpedagog (special pedagogue) has a different remit. They work at the organisational level: advising teachers, mapping the school’s support structures, coordinating between the school’s elevhälsa team and classroom teachers. Their training does not include a teaching qualification. Sweden’s government acknowledged this in Kommittédirektiv 2025:93, issued in October 2025, which states explicitly that “en specialpedagogexamen ger ingen undervisningsbehörighet” (a specialpedagog qualification provides no teaching authorisation). They cannot step in and teach a student directly.
Both roles matter. But for a student with ADHD who needs to work one-on-one with someone who can adapt the lesson in real time, only one of those roles can provide it.
The forecast: surplus of one, shortage of the other
Skolverket’s Lärarprognos 2024 (Rapport 2025:2, published January 2025) maps teacher supply and demand through 2038. The findings for these two roles point in opposite directions.
For specialpedagoger, the report projects “ett förhällandevis stort överskott” (a relatively large surplus) over the period. The training pipeline produces more specialpedagoger than the school system needs.
For speciallärare, the picture is the opposite: “en betydande brist” (a significant shortage). The number of students starting speciallärare programmes would need to increase by more than 80 percent to close the projected gap. The same report found that four in ten teachers already say access to a speciallärare at their school is poor.
Sweden, in other words, is producing a surplus of the role that cannot teach directly and a shortfall of the role that can.
Why the government has noticed
The mismatch is significant enough that the government launched a formal inquiry. Kommittédirektiv 2025:93 (“Nya utbildningsvägar och fler möjligheter till behörighet att undervisa inom det specialpedagogiska området”), published October 23, 2025, acknowledges the problem directly. It notes that many students today need instruction from a speciallärare that they are not receiving, and it tasks an inquiry with designing a new, more flexible qualification that could close the gap. That inquiry is due to report in June 2026.
A new qualification framework may eventually help. But students in school now cannot wait for a qualification that does not yet exist.
What this means for NPF students
Students with ADHD, autism and dyslexia most often need adapted instruction that goes beyond what a classroom teacher can deliver alone during a regular lesson. The extra anpassningar a school puts in place require someone with the knowledge to design them and, often, someone with the time and authorisation to carry them out. Skollagen’s duty to provide särskilt stöd does not distinguish between whether a speciallärare is available; the school is required to meet the need either way.
That is the bind schools are in. The legal duty is clear. The person best placed to deliver it is in short supply. The advice-and-coordination professional is more available but cannot fill the direct-instruction gap.
Sweden has been short of special-education teachers for years, and that gap is unlikely to close quickly. What changes the calculation in the meantime is not finding more specialists but making better use of what is already in the building: early visibility into each student’s needs so that the speciallärare who is there can focus where it matters most, and every classroom teacher has the context to apply extra anpassningar from day one rather than waiting for a referral. That is the gap Nuro is built to help close.