Helena Larsdotter Westerlund ( April 24, 1799 — November 22, 1865), was a Swedish educator.
She was the first woman in Sweden to have been a formally trained and licensed elementary school teacher, when given special dispensation to study and graduate from the teachers' seminary in Gothenburg (Folkskoleseminariet i Göteborg) in 1846.
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.
In 1859, women where formally allowed to teach in the compulsory education system.