Finland's reputation as a leading education system has long been a source of national pride, largely due to the country's strong performance on the Pisa test, which assesses 15-year-olds' skills across wealthy nations. That's why the recent drop from the top rankings has sparked a sense of national concern.
Recently, some have attributed the decline in scores to Finland's growing immigrant population.
A new study found that immigrant-background pupils lag behind their peers in Finland. But they don't just lag a little — their Finnish skills are so poor that they can't fully function in society, according to a government report that drew on the latest Pisa results. The show hears from a parent unhappy with the quality of Finnish her kids learned at school — a level she said holds immigrant kids back.
This week's episode explores how the education system approaches teaching Finnish to students from immigrant backgrounds.
"Most of the immigrants' children struggle because they have been studying S2, which I call 'Finnish for Dummies'. Honestly, it's like simplified Finnish," Samah Zain told the show.
Listen to the episode via this embedded player, on Yle Areena, via Apple, Spotify or wherever you get your podcasts.
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Egan Richardson and Zena Iovino presented this episode of All Points North, with additional reporting by Priya Ramachandran D'Souza. The sound engineer was Juha Hjelm.
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