Is it only me that feels this is an overall dumb idea? What's the point in learning in English if your Finnish or Swedish skills aren't good enough to get a job? You wont integrate or learn the language being surrounded by other foreign students speaking English. Where will these children be eventually employed? Probably not in Finland. If anything, English-only schooling should be only available to people already fluent in Finnish or Swedish, imo.
by neityght
11 comments
It’s not entirely stupid, if those student are from expat families who are not going to stay here, like a professional from an international company overseeing a project here. Their kids need education too.
But for someone who is actually migrating to Finland to have a life here, it’s absolutely a braindead idea to put your kids in English-speaking school.
If there is a need, it makes sense. Because the alternative is that those kids don’t manage to study. So now they can learn the curriculum and, I hope, additionally they have intensive language classes as well.
When you move at let’s say 17 y.o. (Like I did), you really don’t have time to go to language school, study for a year, and then go back to the beginning of your studies in Finnish or Swedish, you’d waste 2 years. Many kids are in that position, and well there are IB schools.
IB, unfortunately, is very poorly counted comparing to the national system, for example if I were to take maths two levels lower than I did, it would count as long maths in uni applications. Some things, like extended essay that we waste over 50 hours on are not counted at all. So yeah, provided the choice, I’d study in English in a local gymnasium and go to a better uni.
P.S. I study in a local language in uni rn, studying in English doesn’t prevent someone from learning national languages
Stupid use of tax money imo. They dont fund schools enough for Finns and a lot of Finns are without work and are not allowed to go to school often if they already have some profession they are not going to do or cant do. Then they want to instead offer education spots to foreigners who are not even learning Finnish and thus wont get hired very easily.
Not saying that foreigners should not be allowed to go to school, but they should learn Finnish if they want to do other than higher education and are top level students.
There is no money in the country, we are literally going bankrupt. Nobody else on the planet speaks Finnish, and just about 15 millions people speak a language that is “Swedish”. Who are we going to trade with in the local languages? Unless you believe the future generations should just abandon the country because there is no future, the sooner English becomes a de facto 3rd language, the sooner we have a chance to have hot water and food in the future. In case people have failed to see it, there are 5.5 millions (and decreasing) of us, we have a massive border with an enemy country, all the country is 60 degrees north or worse, most of the population is concentrated in the bottom 20% of our land, and we have no unique or especially valuable natural resources. If you can find another country ‘blessed’ as we are making a mint, please do tell!
English is a far more useful language than Swedish as a second language or even a first language in Finland, and certainly in an international context. Finnish should (and would) still be taught. It’s not as though it’s English *instead of* Finnish.
So no, it’s not a dumb idea. I can of course help you with your own English if you require, as it seems a little short of “minimally diligent” and closer to “typed with a haddock”.
Not entirely related but I overhear (foreign, predominantly South-Asian) kids who are around the age of 7-14 speaking in English among each other in the tram all the in the morning here at Tampere. I presume they study in English too in some international school. Why would anyone move here and make their kid study in English is beyond me. That’s like killing all chance of integration into the job market and it’s not like Finnish students end up incapable of speaking English coming out of the public schooling system.
I don’t understand. Isn’t International Baccalaureate (IB) school especially for this? I know they have a bit different curriculum, meaning they focus on fewer important subjects, but those graduates are still eligible to apply for further education in Finland.
Theoretically, this is a good idea. In practice, this is likely to only result in more brain drain.
It’s good only for those people that bring their kids here for a short time and plan to return to a English speaking country.
I do not see how it would help young people planning to live permanentely in Finland since you know, you need Finnish to do most of the stuff in here.
It’s a move , I think, intended to make it easier for the parents of said young people thinking to emmigrate to Finland. Still it does not make too much sense.
One example: Lapland. Several seasonal workers come to Lapland and bring their children. I heard in kittilä there was already classrooms in English only for those children, who won’t spent a long time living in Finland.
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