Helena Larsdotter Westerlund ( April 24, 1799 — November 22, 1865), was a Swedish educator. She was the first woman in

Sweden Sweden, formally the Kingdom of Sweden,The United Nations Group of Experts on Geographical Names states that the country's formal name is the Kingdom of SwedenUNGEGN World Geographical Names, Sweden./ref> is a Nordic country located on ...

to have been a formally trained and licensed

elementary school A primary school (in Ireland, the United Kingdom, Australia, Trinidad and Tobago, Jamaica, and South Africa), junior school (in Australia), elementary school or grade school (in North America and the Philippines) is a school for primary ed ...

teacher, when given special dispensation to study and graduate from the teachers' seminary in

Gothenburg Gothenburg (; abbreviated Gbg; sv, Göteborg ) is the second-largest city in Sweden, fifth-largest in the Nordic countries, and capital of the Västra Götaland County. It is situated by the Kattegat, on the west coast of Sweden, and has ...

(''Folkskoleseminariet i Göteborg'') in 1846.

Biography

She was from

Svenljunga Svenljunga is a locality and the seat of Svenljunga Municipality, Västra Götaland County Västra Götaland County ( sv, Västra Götalands län) is a county or '' län'' on the western coast of Sweden. The county is the second most populo ...

parish in Västra Götaland, Sweden. Originally a teacher of a village school, she was one of many women school teachers to be inducted in the new compulsory elementary school system when it was introduced in Sweden in 1842. The previous village schools, which was not subjected to government regulation, was dominated by women teachers, but when the compulsory education system was introduced by the state, the new regulation demanded formally educated teachers, which was not possible for women as no state schools where open to them. As there was a lack of educated male school teachers because of the great female domination in this field, the former women teachers where often allowed to stay on, officially only as temporary stand in-teachers. Westerlund was the first woman to be granted dispensation to study and graduate from a state teacher's college; she was granted her teacher's licence after only one months' study period (1846), which appears to have been but a formality, and continued to be the first woman formally employed as a teacher in the state education system as well as the first one granted a teacher's pension from the state when she retired in 1861. She was active in Kalv parish in

Västergötland Västergötland (), also known as West Gothland or the Latinized version Westrogothia in older literature, is one of the 25 traditional non-administrative provinces of Sweden (''landskap'' in Swedish), situated in the southwest of Sweden. Väs ...

. In 1859, women where formally allowed to teach in the compulsory education system. When she retired, she was the first woman granted a state pension as a teacher. She retired to the home of her niece at Håckvik parish in

Biography

See also

References

Further reading