The Finnish Education System In A Nutshell

The Finnish educa­tional system is divided between national gover­nance and local municipal pro­vision. The Ministry of Education and Culture sets the legis­lation and core policies, and the National Agency for Education sets the national core cur­riculum and steering agenda for primary and lower secondary education. The national core cur­riculum con­tains the objec­tives and core con­tents of sub­jects and the principles of pupil assessment, special needs education, pupil welfare and educa­tional gui­dance. Schools are natio­nally funded, but local munici­pa­lities run schools and manage the funding and their own cur­ricula within the fra­mework of the national core curriculum.

Com­pulsory education applies to all 6–18-year-olds. It includes pre-primary, primary, lower secondary and upper secondary education (divided to voca­tional and general tracks). The majority of younger children attend free or low-cost public early childhood education and care, which is avai­lable for all children under pre-primary school age. Over 95 percent of schools and most of ECEC units are public, but there is some pro­vision of private education par­ticu­larly in the larger cities.

Private schools maintain the national cur­ricula and are free of charge by law. In total, there are 2085 compre­hensive schools in Finland, out of which 85 are private. Educa­tional con­di­tions are equal throughout the county as dif­fe­rences between schools account only roughly for 5% of variation between pupil’s per­for­mance and the ins­ti­tu­tional quality (mea­sured e.g. by teacher qua­li­fica­tions or funding per pupil) is very uniform by inter­na­tional stndards.

Com­pulsory pre-primary education at the age of 6 lasts a year with a minimum lesson period of 700 hours. A school year con­sists of 190 school days. Regu­larly, a lesson in a school lasts 45 minutes fol­lowed by a play break outside or in the school building. Schools provide at least 20 hours per week for 1st and 2nd grade, inc­reasing gra­dually to 30 hours for 9th grade. The sum total of teaching time presc­ribed in the national core cur­riculum for stu­dents’ 9-year of their basic education is 6 300 hours, which is less than the OECD average (7500 hours).

Average class size in primary education was 19.6 stu­dents in 2019. The cor­res­ponding OECD average were slightly higher 21.1. Most of the teaching is in Finnish. However, 6% of teaching is deli­vered in Swedish, and about 10 % of pupils in basic education have a native tongue other than Finnish, Swedish or Saami, with higher shares in larger cities.