Education levels in Finland have remained stagnant since the 1990s and young people's learning outcomes have been declining steadily since at least the turn of the century. Social and gender gaps in learning outcomes and educational achievement have widened.
That's the bleak picture of Finland's education system painted by the Ministry of Education and Culture's Bildung review, published on Thursday.
"The latest stage, which began in the 1990s, is characterised by a decline in the achieved learning outcomes, the plateauing of the rising level of education among Finns, as well as a gradual decrease in public input into education," the report stated.
The Bildung review provides an overview of how Finnish education and student development has fared over the past few decades, and the results show a notable decline from the highs of the 1990s.
"We are no longer the most educated nation. Our young people are no longer the most knowledgeable. You might think that big and quite radical changes would have to be made," Anita Lehikoinen, Permanent Secretary at the Ministry of Education and Culture, said in reaction to the review results.
Learning outcomes in rapid decline
Although the level of learning outcomes achieved by young Finnish people remains high in many internationally comparative studies, the decline in Finland has still been noticeably rapid.
Learning outcomes are defined as measurable standards that determine what students should know or be able to do as a result of taking a course or completing a programme of study.
"We do not know exactly what factors are responsible for the decline. Of course, it also raises questions about how well we understand what factors led to such good results in the first place," according to the report's author, Aleksi Kalenius, a special advisor at the Ministry of Education and Culture.
Previous studies have shown that the decline in reading and mathematics skills is equivalent to more than an entire year of learning, with some data even suggesting two years. This means that, for example, an average 15-year-old's reading skills today are equivalent to those of a 14-year-old — or even a 13-year-old — in the late 1980s or early 1990s.
The decline can be at least partly attributed to cuts in education funding and the subsequent tightening of resources, especially during and in the immediate aftermath of Finland's deep recession in the 1990s.
"Resources fell by about a quarter and have never recovered to their previous levels," Kalenius noted.
Educational attainment drops by international standards
Finland's decades-long rise in educational attainment levels shuddered to a halt after the 1990s.
When compared internationally, the level of education in Finland has slipped since the heydays of the 1990s. For example, the percentage of people with a higher level qualification has not risen in Finland since that time, while other countries have seen significant progress.
"In 2020, we were well below the OECD average, between Chile and Turkey. We have not seen an absolute deterioration since the early 1990s, but everywhere else the rise in educational attainment has continued," Kalenius said.
Previous studies have also shown that measures aimed at raising educational attainment levels have a significant knock-on effect on future economic growth and the economy's dependency ratio.
"Even a decade ago, attention was drawn to the fact that the higher the education, the better the employment and career prospects. This has been a known fact, but there has been no social consensus that we should invest more boldly in raising educational attainment," Anita Lehikoinen noted.
Yle News' weekly All Points North podcast recently delved into the reasons why Finland -- once global education's star pupil -- has been falling behind the rest of the class.
Story continues after audio.
Finland's best educated were born in the 1970s
According to the ministry's report, the most educated age group in Finland are people born in 1978, or those who are currently aged 44-45.
People born after 1978 have not achieved the same high level of education.
However, according to Aleksi Kalenius, the measures taken over the last ten years have helped to close the gap.
"It now looks as if the very youngest age groups will in time reach the same level of educational attainment as the age groups born in the mid- to late-1970s," he said.
This was also noted in the ministry of education's report.
"The favourable development in the initiation of higher education studies, seen in the latter part of the 2010s, has led to those under the age of 28 being more highly educated in 2020 than in 2010. It looks as if the age groups born in the 1990s may end up having a higher level of education than those born at the end of the 1970s," the report stated.
Kalenius also pointed to the need for higher education to be expanded in different ways, but added that the results would only become apparent years in the future.
"Simply increasing the number of starting places is in practice the most important way of increasing the number of people with higher education," he said.
Would you like a roundup of the week's top stories in your inbox every Thursday? Then sign up to receive our weekly email.
