The short answer
Yes. Swedish law has a specific rule for exactly this. When a student has a lasting disability that stops them from meeting an isolated part of the grade criteria, the teacher setting the grade may disregard that part. It is called undantagsbestämmelsen, the exemption provision, and in staffrooms it is often nicknamed “pysparagrafen.” It sits in skollagen and applies from grundskolan through gymnasiet.
The point of it, in Skolverket’s framing, is equal footing. A student whose functional limitation, not their knowledge, is what stands between them and a passing grade should not be failed for the disability itself.
The three conditions
The rule is narrow on purpose. A teacher can only apply it when all three of these hold:
- The student has “en funktionsnedsättning eller andra liknande personliga förhållanden som inte är tillfälliga” (a functional limitation or similar personal circumstances that are not temporary). A broken arm during exam week does not count. Dyslexia, ADHD, and autism can.
- It concerns “enstaka delar av betygskriterierna” (isolated parts of the grade criteria) that the student does not meet, with “ett direkt samband mellan elevens funktionsnedsättning och svårigheterna” (a direct connection between the limitation and the difficulty with exactly those parts).
- The difficulty “inte kan avhjälpas med särskilt stöd” (cannot be remedied with special support). The exemption is the last resort, after adaptation and support have been tried.
Two words there do a lot of work. “Enstaka” (isolated) means the rule lets a teacher set aside a specific criterion, not whole subjects or large parts of a course. And “direkt samband” means the link between the disability and that specific criterion has to be real and demonstrable, not a general allowance.
Where it does and does not apply
This is the part that trips people up. The exemption is a grading tool, and only a grading tool. Skolverket is explicit: “Den får bara användas vid betygssättning, inte i undervisningen eller i den löpande bedömningen eller ett nationellt prov” (it may only be used when setting grades, not in teaching, not in ongoing assessment, and not on a national test).
So the national tests are not “pysed.” What a student with dyslexia or ADHD can get on the national tests is an adaptation of how they sit the test, decided by the principal, which is a separate rule with its own logic. The exemption is what can come later, at the moment the final grade is set.
Who decides
The teacher. “Det är du som betygssättande lärare som beslutar” (it is you, the grading teacher, who decides). There is no board and no external sign-off. That is a real responsibility, and it rests on the teacher actually knowing the student: which criterion is out of reach, whether the reason is genuinely the disability, and whether support could have closed the gap instead.
Why this matters for neurodivergent students, and for Nuro
The exemption is where a lot of NPF students’ grades are quietly won or lost, and it depends entirely on a judgement the teacher can only make well if they can see the student clearly. A direct link between a lasting disability and a specific unmet criterion is not something you reconstruct from memory at the end of term. It is something you know because the student’s way of working, what they can already demonstrate, and what has been tried, has been visible all along.
Nuro does not set grades, and it should not. What it does is keep that per-student picture current and legible: how the student learns, what adaptations are in place, what they can show they know when the format works for them. That is exactly the ground a sound undantagsbestämmelsen judgement stands on, and it is the same picture that the utredning behind särskilt stöd and the documentation Skollagen already requires are meant to hold. The right to a fair grade exists. Making it easy for a teacher to apply it well is the part still being built.