The results late last year from the Pisa-survey of global school standards again placed Finland high-up in the international rankings. Finland’s pupils came third in reading, fifth in mathematics and second in nature sciences. But, Swedish-language schools performed less well than those teaching in the medium of Finnish. If Svenskfinland were ranked on its own, its pupils would have come in at eighth, eleventh and ninth place for the respective subjects tested. Just why are Swedish-speaking school pupils performing less well in tests?
Much discussion on this matter took place in the immediate aftermath of the publication of Pisa last autumn. Commentators speculated mainly that it was due to the linguistic situation in many Swedish-speaking schools. Swedish-speaking schools contain a hugely disproportionate number of bilingual students, some of whom (especially in the capital region) may in fact have a better command of Finnish than Swedish (especially the case if they’ve perhaps a Finnish-speaking mother, but Swedish-speaking father) when they start school at seven. However, a large article in this morning’s (27/1) Hufvudstadsbladet questions that easy conclusion.
For a start, pupils in Nyland (Uusimaa) and Åboland out-perfomed students in Österbotten and Åland. If the poorer results by Swedish-speaking students were down to their often mixed language environment, one might expect the highly Swedish-speaking Österbotten and unilingually Swedish Åland to out-perform the far more bilingual Nyland. Instead, Michael Uljens from Åbo akademi’s pedagogical faculty in Vasa suggests that the regional differences are perhaps down to pupils’ ambition. In Österbotten and on Åland, university education in Sweden is often considered as an alternative for those that don’t command the Finnish language, and it is far easier to get into Sweden’s higher education institutes without the highest grades than those in Finland.
But the major issue posed by this morning’s newspaper article regards the standard of teachers in Swedish-speaking schools. Heidi Harju-Luukkainen has analysed the Pisa-results from Swedish-speaking schools. She notes that Finland as a whole performs well in Pisa-surveys because it has extremely few pupils in the lowest ability group used to generate the country-by-country comparisons. Finland does not have geniuses growing on trees, but the vast majority of students perform consistently well. But, in Swedish-speaking schools there are a higher number of pupils in the lower group which drags down their Pisa-averages. Harju-Luukkainen suggests this could be down to the difference in quality of special teachers used in Swedish-speaking schools. In Finnish-speaking schools, these are very good and thus at risk pupils receive high quality support enabling them to reach an adequate level. On the Swedish-side, there is a shortage of such teachers. Three of the six faculty members at Åbo akademi responsible for instructing Swedish-speaking special teachers are senior research students (doktorander*). Finnish-speaking university departments on the other hand can afford to turn away all but doctors when seeking employees. For its part, Åbo akademi in Vasa denies that it offers a poor education for special teachers. Additionally, there are less applicants and thus less competition to become special teachers on the Swedish side. That may mean that Finnish-speaking universities get better candidates training to be special teachers in the first place, a positive once they’re qualified.
So what can be done about this? Some suggest that the fact that Swedish-speaking teachers are only educated in Vasa (in Österbotten) puts off prospective candidates from Nyland, who do not wish to travel so far for their university studies. Some have suggested that teachers should also be educated in Helsingfors (Helsinki) to counter this problem. However, Åbo akademi’s pedagogical faculty in Vasa denies that geography is a problem and warns against splitting the education of teachers in two. Half of the students at Åbo akademi’s teaching unit in Vasa are not from Österbotten.
On a positive note, the problems should not be overstated. Even if the Swedish-speaking pupils are taken alone, they signficantly outperformed students in the other Nordic countries and are still amongst the top in the world. Whilst not counted by Pisa, Hufvudstadsbladet’s article also points out that Swedish-speaking pupils are happier and more involved at school than Finnish-speaking students are. Additionally, integration is better in Finland’s Swedish-language schools.
* There is a difference between Finland and much of the English-speaking world when it comes to academic levels. A doktorand is generally someone who has defended a PhD thesis or is in the process of doing so, and would doubtless be called a doctoral student or even doctor in most English-speaking countries. However, in Finland the rank of doktor (doctor) is higher that this. I am not an education expert, so this may be an unclear and false explanation – but you get the idea, the Finnish-speaking universities generally have staff that are higher qualified.
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Friday 28.1.11 at 0:07
Timothy Bryan
I am actually thinking of getting my PH at Åbo Akademi. Jonas, have you heard that the environment there is inferior for research in relation to the Fiinish Universities?
Also, is Pargas the only place where one could live in that area and get to speak Swedish with one’s neighbors?
Sorry for the questions, but you are the expert on the ground
Friday 28.1.11 at 13:21
Jonas
Hello Timothy,
No, I have not heard that. Åbo akademi is generally well respected. You should note that it is relatively small as a university, but Åbo is a large city and ÅA cooperates quite a lot with the Finnish-language Turun yliopisto (University of Turku) in some areas. What were you thinking of researching? Remember that aside from teaching, I believe also healthcare subjects are located in Vasa not Åbo.
Well, I am not such an expert on the Åbo region. But, certainly in Pargas you would probably be able to speak Swedish in the town. I guess it does not take so long to reach Åbo from Pargas. As you infer, Åbo itself is not home to many Swedish-speakers – ÅA’s students aside. University of Helsinki is officially bilingual, although increasingly less so in practice. You could also consider studying there. Places like Sibbo, Borgå, Karis are all within relatively reasonable commuting distance (up to 1 hr), and are to various degrees Swedish-speaking. Or you could try and find a place to live in Grankulla which I think is still around 40% Swedish-speaking. Potentially expensive though.
Friday 28.1.11 at 16:58
Lena Eriksson
I think a problem between the Finnish and Swedish schools is the quality of textbooks. Many times they are poorer in the Swedish schools because less resources have been given to their production. They are often more outdated and poorly produced. The market is of course smaller, which may also play a roll. Naturally, schools attempt to source materials from Finland – not least because lessons and the curriculum rightly reflect Finnish realities. But, at times I think it would not hurt to look to what is available on the market in Sweden.
Friday 28.1.11 at 23:31
Rasmus
It is good that they are investigating this matter further. I also don’t buy the argument that the differences are down to the language matter. Bilingualism has been shown time and time again to be an intellectual asset. The problem must lie elsewhere. Maybe it is the teachers, maybe the textbooks, maybe some of both. It needs further research.
Tuesday 1.2.11 at 20:34
Donnchadh
Jonas – this is an interesting commentary on an issue which is significant for minority language communities in general. For many lesser-used languages it is not uncommon for there a) to be practical difficulties in accessing provision and for there b) to be little or no provision for special needs. The hypothesis is that (assuming education is available at all through the medium of the minority language) these two factors tend to skew participation in a way that favours higher attainment, since those who are less able and/or from less supportive/aspirational/wealthy family backgrounds tend to be stripped out and educated within the majority language system. The average level of performance is therefore higher for the minority language system.
I do wonder therefore whether the results for Swedish education in Finland are merely indicative of the kind of outcome one would expect within any small, relatively heterogenous education system. The resources and economies of scale available within a larger system are naturally more limited and the demands in terms of variations in needs and abilities are relatively greater. Nonetheless, as you point out, overall perfomance against an international benchmark remains impressive.
From what you say there is evidently some tendency to accentuate variation at the ends of standard distribution (ie to flatten the normal curve somewhat). It would interesting to pursue that supposition in relation to high-performing pupils, not least given the claim made for some other bilingual systems that overall educational performance tends to be higher than for monolingual comparators.
All of which tends to suggest that education in Finnish is the principal anomaly (given its exceptional results and ability to deal more effectively with those in the lower attainment bracket), with education in Swedish affected by a range of factors – within which size and available resources are probably of considerable significance.
The implication (no doubt unwelcome in some quarters) is presumably that Swedish-language education (as a small education system) needs a higher per capita spend in order to replicate the performance of the (very high performing) Finnish-language system. Specifically, as you suggest, that means greater effort directed at providing for special needs and support for low attainers. Given the number of variables involved, there are unlikely to be simple answers, but I think you are certainly exploring some interesting territory here.
Wednesday 2.2.11 at 6:22
Timothy Bryan
Jonas,
Thank you for the advice, and for the information. I will think it through, but part of the reason I was looking to the Turku area is that it seems a bit cheaper, and although I have a decent permanent income, I want to have a place that the euro goes a little farther in. Looking online, it amazes me how expensive housing can be in Finland.
Rasmus,
You bring up a point that I have thought about over the years in relation to bilingualism–that it is always an advantage. I also believe it is a huge advantage on a personal level, but because I am open-minded enough to challenge my own perceptions, I wonder if it can be shown to be the opposite within economics at the state level.
Put differently, it would seem that most of the budding and current economic powers of the present are from countires that are basically monolingual: the U.S., Japan, China, Korea, and even Germany and France, as well as England. I will exclude the USSR from the hypothesis, even though are similarly monolingual. Could it be the monolingual societies have “something” that others are missing?
Obviously there are a bevy of small countries that are rich and multilingual, but it makes for an interesting thought experiment, even if it may go against my beliefs in learning as many languages as possible. Any thoughts?
Wednesday 2.2.11 at 10:53
Rasmus
Timothy,
That is perhaps because none of the largest countries happen to be significantly multilingual. All the countries you mentioned as being economic superpowers have extremely large populations. Although, Chinese is not really one language in an oral sense. People who live in different parts of the country have a far greater difficulty understanding each other than Swedish-speakers and Norwegian-speakers have.
The richest country per capita in Europe is, I believe, Luxemburg – possibly the world’s most functionally multilingual society. Even the newspapers are written in multiple languages (i.e. in the same publication). Per capita wealth might be a fairer way of looking at things. Then you’d have countries like Switzerland, Canada and Belgium up there as well, all linguistically diverse.
Wednesday 2.2.11 at 13:38
jokuvaan
Whole issue would be rather uninteresting and simply explained by students who are actually Finnish speaking(but put in Swedish school due to their parents mindset) unless there was continuous threat to close more expensive Swedish speaking schools and merge them into Finnish speaking.
btw. Former prime minister Paavo Lipponen who is fanatical about Swedish language: “we actually are Swedes”, has send his children into German speaking school. Editor-in-chief of biggest Finnish newspaper Helsingin Sanomat(which is pro Swedish) has send his children into France speaking school. I think there’s a shift that in the eyes of elite, Swedish language is dropping it’s value which is of course healthy development.
btw2. If some non-Finnish person is reading this blog and is interested about upcoming elections, check the orange line in this poll study:
http://www.yle.fi/puoluekannatusmittari/
If it overtakes the blue-one, it will mean a lot of changes in language policies.
Wednesday 2.2.11 at 13:59
Jonas
Hi Donnchadh,
Very interesting. I should point out that it is not me that is exploring these things. I can not accept any credit at all! I am just repeating the contents of an article in the newspaper Hufvudstadsbladet. But, what is good news is that people who have far greater expertise than me and have the time and influence to make a difference are exploring these matters.
And indeed, it may well be that we need greater resources per capita devoted to especially special teaching.
Hi Jokuvaan,
Did you read the thread or just comment on the headline? Your conclusions are exactly those that most of us assumed and rushed to when the results first came out last year. It’s exactly what I thought as well. But, now it turns out that we were wrong. Schools in Nyland, where there are far more cases of pupils with weaker Swedish in Swedish schools, performed better than schools in Österbotten and even Åland. So, that does not seem to be the reason. It seems to be more down to an inferior level of support for weaker students in the Swedish schools when compared to the Finnish.
I don’t see what Pisa has to do with where certain Finnish-speakers, prominent or otherwise, said their children. That’s up to them. If I were a Finnish-speaker, I’d send my children to a Finnish-speaking school.
Wednesday 2.2.11 at 18:34
Timothy Bryan
Rasmus,
Remember that I am in agreement with you, but if I was to play the devil’s advocate, one could also say that Switzerland succeeds with its privacy/financial/banking/business/low taxes, Canada has nearly unlimited natural resources and the world’s largest market with no tariffs, and if Belgium is measured, we could chop off Washington DC to get smilar numbers or higher regarding wealth–and the same with Luxumbourg.
I think on a personal level the benefit of languages is truly unequalled, but the economic argument for larger states is probably more nuanced as it related to their competitiveness. And this doesn’t address the social identification/historical importance of mother languages, which is a different matter entirely.
Jokuvaan,
What does these people having their children learning other languages have to do with protecting the Swedish-speaking minority of Finland? Are you saying that their children did not learn Swedish?
As for the Swedish language dropping its value, one could certainly say the same about Finnish, but nobody is saying that; in fact, I will ensure my children are unerringly fluent in Finnish. Why does fluency in Finnish have to mean that Swedish must be diminished in Finland?
Monday 21.2.11 at 14:38
Pekka
Jonas, cool down. The differences between the performance of Swedish-speaking schools contra Finnish-speaking are results of dadaa….language. As a Uralic-language the spelling system in Finnish is extremely easy compared to many Indo-European languages. PISA relies heavily on spelling which gives Fenno youngster considerable advantage compared English-or Swedish speakers, f.e, exactly as professor of East Asian language Juha Janhunen has publicly stated.
Monday 21.2.11 at 20:49
Jonas
Well, my instinct is to agree Pekka – as I think I said above. But, it seems the evidence suggests this is not the primary explanation.
But of course, as you say, Finnish spelling is highly logical compared to Swedish and English, I agree entirely. They always say that Danish children have it the hardest in Europe to learn how to write. Hardly surprising when you compare spoken Danish with the written form.
Wednesday 23.2.11 at 0:56
Troels-Peter
I’ve heard that too. I cant’t contribute with my own experience, though, since, being a bit of a language freak, I don’t remember any problems. But experts usually say that English and Danish compete about being hardest on the children. As far as I remember, Denmark scored really low in the tests, and Finland is always mentioned here as the way to go.
There might actually be languages with an even harder spelling in Europe – Gaelic and Faroese – but these have not been researched in these respects, I suppose.