ABOUT 54,000 children have just or are just about to start their school journey in Finland.
YLE on Tuesday reported that the number of children entering the first year of basic education is historically low – and likely to continue declining in the coming years. The number of children turning seven was roughly 60,000 as recently as in 2020.
“The development we’re seeing now suggests that in a couple of years the age group that starts school will be even smaller and stay at a slightly lower level of around 50,000 pupils, unless there’s an unexpected change over the years,” Irma Garam, a special researcher at the Finnish National Agency for Education (OPH), stated to the public broadcasting company.
OPH is forecasting that nationwide the number of first-grade pupils will decline by almost a fifth between 2011 and 2040, led by a drop of almost 40 per cent in Southern Savonia and drops of over 30 per cent in Kainuu, Kanta-Häme, Kymenlaakso, Satakunta and Central Ostrobothnia. The decline is set to be the least dramatic in Uusimaa (6%), Åland (8%), Pirkanmaa (12%) and Southwest Finland (16%).
In Tampere and Vantaa, the number of first-graders is forecast to increase moderately.
Municipalities appear to be reacting to the demographic change by shuttering small schools, according to an analysis by OPH. The number of schools, it shows, has halved while the average school size has increased since the start of the 2000s.
Mari Sjöström, a basic education expert at the Association of Finnish Municipalities, predicts that smaller schools will continue closing their doors as the number of new pupils dwindle.
“I don’t think there’s a way to avoid this development,” she said to YLE.
The association is helping municipalities to develop means to increase collaboration between schools – even across municipal borders. Finland currently has 10 pilot areas, where a total of 39 municipalities have joined forces to develop solutions to improve the accessibility of basic education in the face of the demographic reality.
“Municipalities want to develop teaching methods that take advantage of remote connections in a way that enables the provision of teaching from one school to another over the web,” said Sjöström.
In most parts of Finland, the school year began earlier this week, on Wednesday or Thursday.
Curled from HelsinkiTimes
