Compulsory teaching of the Swedish language in Finnish schools
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Swedish is a mandatory school subject for Finnish-speaking pupils in the last four years of primary education (grades from 6 to 9). In elementary school, there are two Swedish lessons a week, and by the fall of 2024, the number will increase to three.[1] The linguistically nationalist Finnish Swedish People's Party would like to increase the number of compulsory Swedish lessons by more than 50 %, make the Swedish compulsory again in matriculation essays and remove the obligation for Swedish-speaking civil servants to know how to speak Finnish properly. The party also demands that Finnish taxpayers' money be used to pay for a campaign in Sweden, Norway and Denmark to attract people to study in Swedish-speaking educational institutions in Finland[2]
This other domestic language is also mandatory in high schools (lukio, gymnasium), vocational schools (ammattikoulu, yrkeskola), business schools (kauppaoppilaitos, handelskola), police school, theater school and universities for students of all fields. Partly it is mandatory also in the army, and at the request of SFP, it is intended to create compulsory Swedish education for children already under primary school age (esikoulu, the compulsory school year before primary school). Furthermore, all university graduates must demonstrate a certain level of proficiency in Swedish (the so-called public servant's Swedish). Altogether, 89% of Finnish citizens are native Finnish speakers, whereas 5.3% of the population report Swedish as their mother tongue.[3] It is currently possible for Finnish citizens to report a different mother tongue for themselves as many times as desired by submitting a form to the Population Register Center.
According to the Finnish constitution, both Finnish and Swedish are national languages. The employees of the national government and the bilingual municipal governments are required to be capable of serving citizens in Swedish. The official term for both mandatory Swedish and Finnish is the other domestic language. The requirement to study Swedish is often referred to as pakkoruotsi, a term in Finnish meaning "mandatory Swedish", or "forced Swedish," and similarly, Finnish as a mandatory school subject for native Swedish speakers in Finland is sometimes referred to as "mandatory Finnish" or "enforced Finnish" (tvångsfinska, pakkosuomi),[4] but since the Swedish speakers in Finland are only a little group (5 %), "mandatory Finnish" is not a full similar thing than "mandatory Swedish". Its necessity is much easier to verify. For example, according to Kari Sajavaara (1938–2006), a Finnish applied linguistics researcher and professor at the University of Jyväskylä who is familiar with the subject, the meaning of the Finnish language for Swedish speakers in Finland is quite different from the meaning of the Swedish language for Finnish speakers.[5]
In Sweden, the compulsory teaching of the Swedish language in Finland is called school Swedish (skolsvenska) and the opposition to "mandatory Swedish" in Finland is considered a strange and frightening shocking phenomenon.[6]
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