Last night, I went with Elvira to check out a gymnasium school in Mölnlycke, Hulebäck. It's not easy for teenagers who are leaving the compulsary school (or their parents) to decide upon what kind of school to apply for. It's difficult enough to know what kind of educational direction to choose. Both the private and community schools are competing in getting their volumes filled with students = getting financial fundings or tax money from the communities where the children lives. Lots of marketing tricks are used to appear more attractive than the others. For example, at Hulebäcks gymnasium, we were served a very nice dinner. I also got a bit extra suspious when the staff & teachers were acting like classic sales persons. It's of course nice to be treated like a customer, but last night the behaviour felt a bit untrue. My perception based on dealings with teachers etc from the past didn't match at all, but times are changing for sure and hopefully also for the better. Well, I hope that the teachers are as customer minded, friendly and helpful to the students normally too.

Big school with 1700 students, sounds like a lot to me. Elvira is checking 3-4 different schools, so let's see what happens.

My reflection is that, even if it's good to have many options to choose from, it's so confusing for a 15 year old, who is confronted with so many other crossroads in life all the time, so they might go for something that actually has been packaged and marketed in a more attractive way, regardless of the quality of the content. References from others are very important.

Hulebäcks gymnasium has a nice motto that I like "Be the one you are and become the one you want".

It was much easier when I was young. Then the big question was, to continue or not. We were only 3 out of 15 boys that continued with studies at gymnasium level. The rest started working straight away at the various industries around or got involved in the family business. They then bought motorcycles and had money for parties and other fun stuff all the time. Plus no boring homework during evenings. I felt a bit jealous of that sometimes. On the other hand, for us, there were lots of nice girls in the gymnasium ;-)