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Adult education of educational institutions: documentation of statistics

19.11.2024 valid documentation

Basic data of the statistics

Data description

The statistics on the adult education of educational institutions contain data on the adult education organised by vocational institutes, universities of applied sciences, music schools and colleges, sports institutes, folk high schools, adult education centres, summer universities and study circle centres. The statistics include data on the volume of adult education provided by educational institutions, the number of participants in such education, and the teaching hours provided by teachers according to the principal content of the education.

The data are used in the planning of education and for research and evaluation purposes.
 

Statistical population

The data are based on data collected for Statistics Finland by the organisers of education on vocational institutes, universities of applied sciences, music schools and colleges, sports institutes, folk high schools, adult education centres, summer universities and the study circle centres of educational associations. The data represent total data.
 

Statistical unit

The observation units are a student and the teaching hours provided by teachers.
 

Unit of measure

The number of participants and the number of teaching hours provided by teachers are published.
 

Base period

No indices are used in the statistics.
 

Reference period

The reference period is a calendar year.
 

Reference area

The reference area is the whole of Finland, both Mainland Finland and the Åland Islands.
 

Sector coverage

The statistics contain data on education not leading to a qualification or degree organised by vocational institutes (educational institution type 21 to 28), universities of applied sciences (41), music schools and colleges (61), sports institutes (62), folk high schools (63), adult education centres (64), summer universities (66) and study circle centres (65).
 

Time coverage

The compiling of the statistics on the adult education of educational institutions, based on the data collection concerning educational institutions’ education not leading to a qualification or degree, began from 2004. The statistics are final.
 

Frequency of dissemination

The statistics are published once a year between November and December on the website of Statistics Finland.
 

Concepts

Additional education

In the statistics on comprehensive school education and special education and in the statistics on adult education of educational institutions, additional education in comprehensive school refers to the optional additional class (10th class) of one year's duration available for young people having completed the syllabus of comprehensive school education. Pupils in additional education also include special support receiving pupils that are in extended compulsory education.

Adult education

In the statistics on adult education of educational institutions adult education refers to education, course or training programme that is designed for adults and lasts at least six hours.

Educational institution

An educational institution refers to an administrative unit with a principal or other head, which has teachers and other personnel in its service (role of employers), and which is liable to keep books and compile other documentation, in which students are registered, whose activities are regulated by a legal act or decree, which follows a national curriculum, and which is financed and controlled by a public authority. An educational institution does not refer to a school building or facility. A new educational institution is established, an educational institution is abolished or merged with another educational institution at the decision of the organiser of education (maintainer of the educational institution) or a public authority.

Statistics Finland has assigned an individualised educational institution ID to each educational institution. Educational institutions are classified according to a classification of types of educational institutions.

Educational system

The Finnish educational system is comprised of the following:

Pre-primary education is provided in Finland to 6-year-old children, usually at children's day care homes. Some 6-year-old children receive pre-primary education in comprehensive schools. Attendance of pre-primary education has been compulsory since 2015.
Comprehensive school education is general knowledge education provided for entire age cohorts. All children permanently resident in Finland must attend compulsory education. Compulsory education starts in the year of the child's seventh birthday.
Compulsory education finishes when the syllabus of comprehensives school education has been completed (9-year comprehensive school), or 10 years from the start of compulsory education. In exceptional cases compulsory education may start already at the age of six and last 11 years due to a disability or illness. A student who has received a leaving certificate from comprehensive school in the same year or in the year before it may continue to attend optional additional education (10th grade).

Post-comprehensive school education, or upper secondary general education and vocational education represent secondary level of education. Upper secondary general school education is education leading to a matriculation examination. Its scope is three years and it gives general eligibility to further education. Vocational education can be either educational institution-based or apprenticeship training. In apprenticeship training, most of the studying is comprised of learning through practical work tasks at a workplace. The qualifications are initial vocational qualifications attained in three years, which also give general eligibility to further polytechnic or university studies.

Further and specialist vocational qualifications represent further vocational education. They, as well as initial vocational qualifications can be attained in a skills examination that can be taken irrespective of the way of acquisition of professional skills, and in which skills can be proven on the basis of preparatory education for a skills examination or work experience.

Attainment of university of applied sciences degrees takes 3.5 to 4.5 years and higher university of applied sciences degrees requiring work practice 1-1.5 years. Attainment of lower university degrees takes three years while higher university degrees take two years longer. Attainers of higher level university degrees may continue their studies to licentiate and doctorate level degrees.

General education

Education intended to provide information and skills which facilitate functioning and influencing in society.

Comment:
General education comprises pre-primary education, comprehensive education, general upper secondary education and other non-vocational studies, for example, at liberal adult education institutions.

Level of education

Category into which programmes leading to a qualification or degree are divided on the basis of the requirement level.

Comment:
Selection to education on a particular level of education often requires completion of a lower level of education.

The level of education is measured on the basis of both the overall duration or target time of the education and the requirement level.

Levels of education: early childhood education and care and pre-primary education (duration varies), primary education (6 years), lower secondary education (3 years, in total 9 years from the beginning of comprehensive education), upper secondary education (3 years, in total 12 years from the beginning of comprehensive education), post-secondary non-tertiary education (1-2 years, in total 13-14 years from the beginning of comprehensive education), lowest tertiary education (2-3 years, in total 14-15 years from the beginning of comprehensive education), bachelor's or equivalent level (3-4 years, in total 15-16 years from the beginning of comprehensive education), master's or equivalent level (5-6 years, in total 17-18 years from the beginning of comprehensive education) and second stage of tertiary education (2-4 years, in total 19-22 years from the beginning of comprehensive education).

The level of education indicator cannot be calculated directly on the basis of the duration presented in this concept.

Participants in education

In the statistics on adult education of educational institutions participants in education refer to participants in adult education provided during the calendar year. The same person may have participated (during the same year) in a number of educational programmes in an educational institution, so the number of participants does not correspond to the number of person having participated in education.

Sector of education

Comprehensive education, general upper secondary education, vocational education, university of applied sciences education, university education.

Student

In the statistics on adult education of educational institutions students refer to the students registered at educational institutions during the calendar year and attending education not leading to a qualification or degree. A person is included (as participant) in the gross number of students from each education he/she studies. Thus a student can be included more than once in the number of students in one or more educational institutions during the calendar year. Net number of students means that a person is included as a student only once in one educational institution during the calendar year.

Teaching hour

In the statistics on the adult education of educational institutions teaching hours refer to the hours of teaching provided by teachers, e.g. lecturers, etc.

Accuracy, reliability and timeliness

Overall accuracy

The statistics represent total data. Reminders are sent in terms of missing and inaccurate data.
 

Timeliness

The data are published approximately 11 months after the reference period. There are no delays between the release calendar and the actual release date.
 

Punctuality

There are no delays between the release calendar and the actual release date.
 

Comparability

Comparability - geographical

The statistics cover the whole of Finland. The data does not include regional information.
 

Comparability - over time

The compiling of the statistics describing the adult education of educational institutions began in the early 1990s. The statistical population has expanded over the years from vocational institutes to general educational institutions and universities of applied sciences. The statistics previously also included adult education leading to a qualification or degree. The compiling of the statistics began from 2004, as of which time there exists a comparable time series of the participants and teaching hours provided by the teachers.
 

Coherence - cross domain

The data are based on the same data sources and they are compiled according to the same principles as other statistics of Statistics Finland describing education. These statistics can be used in parallel, provided that the specific characteristics of the statistics are taken into account.
 

Coherence - internal

The data are internally coherent.
 

Source data and data collections

Source data

The data are based on a data collection on education of educational institutions not leading to a qualification, which is implemented through the organisers of the education.

Data collection

The data are collected from the organisers of the education, who organise the data collection within their respective educational institutions (vocational institutes, universities of applied sciences, music schools and colleges, sports institutes, folk high schools, adult education centres, summer universities and study circle centres). The data collection is implemented in the form of an online questionnaire.

 

Frequency of data collection

The data collection is carried out once a year.
 

Methods

Data compilation

Once the data collection period has expired, OpusCapita delivers the data to the Data Collection Department, where the data are checked: verification lists and tables are prepared from the unit data (educational institution) and reviewed. If necessary, the organisers of the education are contacted to correct inaccurate or incomplete data.

The Data Collection Department delivers the data ready for compiling to the Population and Social Statistics unit, which produces a few verification tables on the data.  After this, the direct distributions of the variables are reviewed. Finally, the tables for the release are produced.
 

Data validation

The data are validated in many stages during the statistical process. During the processing of the data, the high quality of the data is ensured through various statistical verification programs, data requests addressed to data providers as well as by comparing the data with previous comparable statistics and other data sources.
 

Principles and outlines

Contact organisation

Statistics Finland

Contact organisation unit

Population and Social Statistics

Legal acts and other agreements

The compilation of statistics is guided by the Statistics Act. The Statistics Act contains provisions on collection of data, processing of data and the obligation to provide data. Besides the Statistics Act, the Data Protection Act and the Act on the Openness of Government Activities are applied to processing of data when producing statistics. 

Statistics Finland compiles statistics in line with the EU’s regulations applicable to statistics, which steer the statistical agencies of all EU Member States. 

Further information: Statistical legislation 


 

Confidentiality - policy

The data protection of data collected for statistical purposes is guaranteed in accordance with the requirements of the Statistics Act (280/2004), the Act on the Openness of Government Activities (621/1999), the EU's General Data Protection Regulation (EU) 2016/679 and the Data Protection Act (1050/2018). The data materials are protected at all stages of processing with the necessary physical and technical solutions. Statistics Finland has compiled detailed directions and instructions for confidential processing of the data. Employees have access only to the data essential for their duties. The premises where unit-level data are processed are not accessible to outsiders. Members of the personnel have signed a pledge of secrecy upon entering the service. Violation of data protection is punishable. 
 


 

Confidentiality - data treatment

The statistics do not include data at an individual level. The data are collected and released at the level of educational institutions.

The tables in the database are more standardised and more specific than the tables used in the statistical release. Background variables are also typically more detailed than those used in the tables of the statistical release. The classifying variables are type of educational institution, field of education and content of education, year and type of education.
 

Release policy

Statistics Finland publishes new statistical data at 8 am on weekdays in its web service. The release times of statistics are given in advance in the release calendar available in the web service. The data are public after they have been updated in the web service. 
 


 

Data sharing

Data of the statistics are made available to the Ministry of Education and Culture and the Finnish National Agency for Education in accordance with the H9098-OKM-OPH information service agreement.
 

Accessibility and clarity

Statistical data are published as database tables in the StatFin database. The database is the primary publishing site of data, and new data are updated first there. When releasing statistical data, existing database tables can be updated with new data or completely new database tables can be published.   
 

In addition to statistical data published in the StatFin database, a release on the key data is usually published in the web service. If the release contains data concerning several reference periods (e.g. monthly and annual data), a review bringing together these data is published in the web service. Database tables updated at the time of publication are listed both in the release and in the review. In some cases, statistical data can also be published as mere database releases in the StatFin database. No release or review is published in connection with these database releases. 
 

Releases and database tables are published in three languages, in Finnish, Swedish and English. The language versions of releases may have more limited content than in Finnish.   
 

Information about changes in the publication schedules of releases and database tables and about corrections are given as change releases in the web service. 


 

Data revision - policy

Revisions – i.e. improvements in the accuracy of statistical data already published – are a normal feature of statistical production and result in improved quality of statistics. The principle is that statistical data are based on the best available data and information concerning the statistical phenomenon. On the other hand, the revisions are communicated as transparently as possible in advance. Advance communication ensures that the users can prepare for the data revisions.

The reason why data in statistical releases become revised is often caused by the data becoming supplemented. Then the new, revised statistical figure is based on a wider information basis and describes the phenomenon more accurately than before.

Quality assessment

The principles of the European Foundation for Quality Management (EFQM principles) are employed by Statistics Finland as its the overall framework for quality management. The quality management framework of the field of statistics is the European Statistics Code of Practice (CoP). The frameworks complement each other. The quality criteria of Official Statistics of Finland are also compatible with the European Statistics Code of Practice.

The quality of the statistics on the adult education of educational institutions is assessed in several different stages of the statistical process.

During the processing of the data, the high quality of the data is ensured through various statistical verification programs, data requests addressed to data providers as well as by comparing the data with previous comparable statistics and other data sources.
 

Quality assurance

Quality management requires comprehensive guidance of activities. The quality management framework of the field of statistics is the European Statistics Code of Practice (CoP). The quality criteria of Official Statistics of Finland are compatible with the European Statistics Code of Practice. 
 


 

User access

Data are released to all users at the same time. Statistical data may only be handled at Statistics Finland and information on them may be given before release only by persons involved in the production of the statistics concerned or who need the data of the statistics concerned in their own work before the data are published. 

Further information: Publication principles for statistics

Unless otherwise separately stated in connection with the product, data or service concerned, Statistics Finland is the producer of the data and the owner of the copyright. The terms of use for statistical data. 

Statistical experts

Service email
koulutustilastot@stat.fi
Tarja Seppänen
Senior Statistician
029 551 3220