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Published: 14 December 2007

Subject choices of completers of upper secondary general school education in 2007

According to Statistics Finland, nearly all completers of the full upper secondary general school syllabus in 2007 had studied English, and Finnish or Swedish during their attendance of upper secondary general school. German had been studied by 33 per cent, French by 19 per cent, Spanish by 11 per cent and Russian by six per cent of the completers of upper secondary general school education. The proportions of those having studied other, more unusual foreign languages remained at four per cent or below. They also vary considerably between genders in several languages.

The completers of upper secondary general school studies had mainly taken English, Swedish or Finnish as a compulsory language subject. German, French, Spanish, Russian and other foreign languages had been mainly studied as an elective language. A total of 32,226 students completed the full upper secondary general school syllabus in spring 2007.

In spring 2007, 41 per cent of all completers of the full upper secondary general school syllabus - 32 per cent of female students and 52 per cent of male students - had taken the long syllabus in mathematics.

Language choices of completers of full upper secondary general school syllabus 2007

Language	Compulsory languages		Elective languages			Total	Share of   completers   of full   upper   secondary   general   school   syllabus, %1)
			At least six courses		Fewer than six courses
	A    language	B1    language	B2  language	B3 language
English	31 916	66	16	9	4	32 011	99,3
Swedish	2 564	27 091	1	10	32	29 698	92,2
Finnish	1 962	22	1	44	6	2 035	6,3
French	733	12	1 302	1 605	2 559	6 211	19,3
German	2 637	31	2 482	2 221	3 328	10 699	33,2
Russian	239	-	90	519	962	1 810	5,6
Sami	2	-	1	3	3	9	0,0
Latin	-	-	34	129	896	1 059	3,3
Spanish	6	-	33	1 361	2 189	3 589	11,1
Italian	1	-	-	317	994	1 312	4,1
Other	-	-	-	14	396	410	1,3
1) In spring 2007, completers of full upper secondary general school syllabus numbered 32,226.

Source: Education Statistics. Statistics Finland

Inquiries: Ms Maija Sikanen +358 9 1734 2292, Ms Irma Suovirta +358 9 1734 3280, koulutus.tilastot@stat.fi

Director in charge: Mr Jari Tarkoma

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Last updated 14.12.2007