A study counsellor on a job shadowing trip in Gothenburg, 1–5 June 2026

Blog post by Kia Lindberg, study counsellor at Helsingin aikuisopiston peruskoulu

Studying at Folkhögskolan Vinga

Folkhögskolan Vinga in Gothenburg offers many different types of education for people who have moved to Sweden. They have SFI (Swedish for Immigrants, Sweden’s integration language training), Allmän kurs grundnivå (basic education for adults) and Gymnasienivå (upper secondary education for adults). One of the most important goals of the school is to build a good team spirit and a sense of belonging. Research shows that this supports integration and students’ wellbeing.

The groups have students at different levels and with different educational backgrounds. The different programmes also work together, and the school has found this good and useful. More experienced students bring new students along and motivate them to try and to study. In basic education and upper secondary education, there are also students born in Sweden who want to finish their education. They study in the same groups as the students who have moved to Sweden.

Lessons and fika breaks

The teaching styles were interactive and encouraged everyone to take part. There were many different discussion tasks, language learning through songs and work in small groups. At the start of every lesson, the teacher handed out library books with the tasks. Students wrote their answers in notebooks, and homework was in Google Classroom.

Every morning from 10.10 to 10.30 there was a fika (coffee break) for all students and teachers. The shared fika was in a space called torget (the square). There was a lot of happy talk about the weather, the summer and families. Students of different ages, levels and countries chatted with each other and with the teachers. The sense of community was amazing! In the afternoons, there were often more informal shared activities in torget.

Support and team spirit

Vinga invests a lot in student support. They have a full-time school social worker and a support person who helps in different languages in the classrooms and in the shared lobby. The support person was easy to approach and always cheerful and helpful. The school also has a wellbeing team (similar to a student welfare group) that meets once a week. The team goes through the situations of individual students and different ways to support them. A special needs teacher also visits the groups, helps students and does assessments for their further studies.

One of the most important tasks of Swedish folk high schools (folkhögskola) is to bring together people with different backgrounds and experiences and to help different people meet. During the week, I also took part in more informal activities. One afternoon, a former student who is now a music teacher held a choir rehearsal for students from a few groups. They practised the song ‘Idas sommarvisa’ together. On another afternoon, the basic education students showed other students and teachers what they had made on their optional courses. There was a fashion show of clothes they had sewn and knitted themselves, a quiz in English and a screening of their own short film. There was a lot of laughter and warm encouragement.