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Published: 24 May 2016

Two out of three students in lower level comprehensive schools study English

According to Statistics Finland, English was the most commonly studied foreign language on grades 1 to 6 of comprehensive school in the autumn semester of 2015. 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 5 per cent or below.

Language choices of comprehensive school pupils in 2015

		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	223 592	14 452	.	.	238 044	66.2	.
	Swedish	2 860	13 231	.	.	16 091	4.5	.
	Finnish	14 490	936	.	.	15 426	4.3	.
	French	2 942	4 449	.	.	7 391	2.1	.
	German	3 163	10 268	.	.	13 431	3.7	.
	Russian	1 113	2 084	.	.	3 197	0.9	.
	Spanish	442	1 450	.	.	1 892	0.5	.
	Italian	0	0	.	.	0	0.0	.
	Sami	3	221	.	.	224	0.1	.
	Other	408	52	.	.	460	0.1	.
Grades 7-9	English	160 595	12 970	181	34	173 780	.	99.5
	Swedish	1 519	11 555	147 963	144	161 181	.	92.2
	Finnish	8 954	1 137	195	0	10 286	.	5.9
	French	1 461	3 633	146	4 903	10 143	.	5.8
	German	1 688	7 233	406	8 503	17 830	.	10.2
	Russian	571	1 068	.	3 317	4 956	.	2.8
	Spanish	76	1 034	.	2 781	3 891	.	2.2
	Italian	0	0	.	135	135	.	0.1
	Sami	0	63	.	7	70	.	0.0
	Latin	0	0	.	400	400	.	0.2
	Other	128	5	.	43	176	.	0.1

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 359,461 pupils attended grades 1 to 6. 184,030 of the pupils were boys and 175,431 were girls. A total of 174,724 pupils attended grades 7 to 9. 89,660 of the pupils were boys and 85,064 were girls.

Data on the language choices of students studying comprehensive education elsewhere than at comprehensive schools (1,724) 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: Jari Tarkoma

Publication in pdf-format (213.1 kB)

Tables

Appendix tables

• Appendix table 1. Language choices of comprehensive school pupils in 2015, boys (24.5.2016)
• Appendix table 2. Language choices of comprehensive school pupils in 2015, girls (24.5.2016)

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Updated 24.5.2016