What does SFI means? It means svenska för invandare (Swedish for Immigrants). This is the grundskolan (elementary school) level. It is also part of the adult education system. It is a grattis (free) school provided by the each kommun (municipality) basically means the city & country or township.
Next level is SAS which is gymnasiet (high school) level. From there you can attend högskolan eller universititet (college or university) for högre utbildning (higher education).
Each city & country that provides the SFI school is a bit different. They can start and end 1-2 weeks after/before other SFI schools. Their schedules can be different also. If you read some of the blogs I have written in 360 Yahoo, windows live space, myspace and my Sverieges Lilly... then you can see the difference.Depending on each city & county... they can provide the simplest materials like a binder & dividers and a blank exercise note book. These I got when I started attending SFI in Uddevalla. However, for other C&C that have less population & less in financial income coming into the kommun (municipality).
For example... for my first 13 months living in Sverige, we lived in Strömstad. Strömstad has money since they have tourist coming / spending their money there. Strömstad joined with Tanumshede... another kommun... into one SFI. Both also don't have that many invandare (immigrants) like Uddevalla.
Stad means town or city. Huvudstad means capital city. Huvud in svenska means head. Strömstad population about 5,800.
Tanumshede pop. about 1,600.
Uddevalla pop. about 50,000.
So looking at above populations in each stad, you can say it makes sense to combine Strömstad och (and) Tanumshede together. Tanum is so small and hardly any tourist visit there. There are some Norsk (Norweigian) residents but during summer or holiday times. Basically, it's their vacation house. Norsk also have bought houses in Strömstad. Look up Daftö for their website... it is a camping, summer place. There is traffic on the one lane each direction road each summer.
For 13 månader (months), we lived on a small island called Tjärnö. It is the # 3 island after you drive past Daftö & then Öddö. Look up Tjärnö Marine Biological Laboratory to see where it is. From Jan. 1 this year, they have changed their name to The Sven Lovén Centre for Marine Sciences. We moved to Uddevalla last November due to Mikael working in Munkedal. He was driving for almost one hour each way when we lived on Tjärnö. Versus now he drives about 20 minutes to Munkedal since it's closer. Munkedal has it's own SFI. Their population is about 10,246. They have a huge papermill there, so they can afford their own SFI.
Living in Uddevalla for over 3 months now, I have met so many different lever (students) in SFI. Some have morning classes while others have afternoon classes. Morning schedules aren't always every morning, they have 1-2 afternoon classes during the week, so every day isn't the same time.
Like for me... på tisdag och fredag (on Tuesday & Friday) is morse (morning) & måndag, onsdag och torsdag (Monday, Wedensday and Thursday) are eftermiddag (afternoon). Kolla/se min SFI ny schema (Kolla is more a slang word... Look/see my SFI new schedule) link in my Top5.
Although SFI isn't a law requirement, it a must to learn so that you can get a better job than cleaning the toilet bowl. Some elder folks don't understand or speak engelska (English), like Mikael's mormor (grandmother, reffering to maternal... paternal is farmor. Go to my "Swedish to English family member words" article: http://www.gather.com/viewArticle.jsp?articleId=281474977216389.
Hejdå! Aloha!
