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Published: 22 May 2015

Share of comprehensive school pupils studying Russian has increased

According to Statistics Finland, the share of comprehensive school pupils studying Russian on grades 1 to 6 was 0.2 percentage points higher and 0.7 percentage points higher on grades 7 to 9 than in 2013. In 2014, altogether 1.0 per cent of pupils on grades 1 to 6 and 3.1 per cent of pupils on grades 7 to 9 studied Russian.

Language choices of comprehensive school pupils in 2014

		Compulsory language A1	Optional language A2	Compulsory language B1	Elective language B2	Total	Share of pupils in grades 1-6 %	Share of pupils in grades 7-9 %
Grades	Studied language
Grades 1-6	English	220 232	14 110	.	.	234 342	66.0	.
	Swedish	3 018	13 377	.	.	16 395	4.6	.
	Finnish	14 430	868	.	.	15 298	4.3	.
	French	2 902	4 340	.	.	7 242	2.0	.
	German	3 184	9 982	.	.	13 166	3.7	.
	Russian	1 124	2 363	.	.	3 487	1.0	.
	Spanish	401	1 243	.	.	1 644	0.5	.
	Italian	0	0	.	.	0	0.0	.
	Sami	3	210	.	.	213	0.1	.
	Other	392	107	.	.	499	0.1	.
Grades 7-9	English	161 617	12 788	181	61	174 647	.	99.4
	Swedish	2 039	10 970	148 677	345	162 031	.	92.2
	Finnish	8 733	1 426	155	4	10 318	.	5.9
	French	1 396	3 732	166	5 093	10 387	.	5.9
	German	1 620	7 659	483	7 924	17 686	.	10.1
	Russian	543	943	.	3 915	5 401	.	3.1
	Spanish	37	829	.	2 700	3 566	.	2.0
	Italian	0	0	.	194	194	.	0.1
	Sami	0	52	.	1	53	.	0.0
	Latin	0	0	.	383	383	.	0.2
	Other	113	4	.	28	145	.	0.1

English was the most commonly studied foreign language on grades 1 to 6 of comprehensive school in the autumn semester of 2014. Sixty-six per cent of the pupils attending grades 1 to 6 studied English either as a compulsory or optional foreign language. The percentages of pupils studying other foreign languages remained at five per cent or below.

Nearly all pupils attending grades 7 to 9 studied both English and Swedish or Finnish either as mother tongue, or as a compulsory, optional or elective foreign language. German was studied by 10 per cent and French by 6 per cent of the pupils attending grades 7 to 9, mainly as an optional or elective foreign language.

A total of 355,139 pupils attended grades 1 to 6. 181,942 of the pupils were boys and 173,197 were girls. A total of 175,686 pupils attended grades 7 to 9. 90,011 of the pupils were boys and 85,675 were girls.

Data on the language choices of students studying comprehensive education elsewhere than at comprehensive schools (1,564) are published in the database table of these statistics.

Source: Education. Statistics Finland

Inquiries: Vesa Hämäläinen 029 551 2594, koulutustilastot@stat.fi

Director in charge: Riitta Harala

Publication in pdf-format (214.1 kB)

Tables

Appendix tables

• Appendix table 1. Language choices of comprehensive school pupils in 2014, boys (22.5.2015)
• Appendix table 2. Language choices of comprehensive school pupils in 2014, girls (22.5.2015)

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Updated 22.5.2015