Majority of comprehensive school pupils study English

Corrected on 28 June 2017. The corrections are indicated in red.

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 2016. Seventy-one 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 18 per cent or below.

Language choices of comprehensive school pupils in 2016

Corrected on 28 June 2017. The corrected numbers are indicated in red.
		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	240 669	15 646	48	.	256 363	70,5	.
	Swedish	3 265	13 268	50 209	.	66 742	18,4	.
	Finnish	17 401	1 112	12	.	18 525	5,1	.
	French	2 949	4 641	17	.	7 607	2,1	.
	German	2 951	11 198	18	.	14 167	3,9	.
	Russian	1 080	1 588	.	.	2 668	0,7	.
	Spanish	576	2 627	.	.	3 203	0,9	.
	Italian	0	0	.	.	0	0,0	.
	Sami	5	238	.	.	243	0,1	.
	Other	429	78	.	.	507	0,1	.
Grades 7-9	English	161 051	12 969	161	27	174 208	.	99,4
	Swedish	1 556	10 971	149 401	17	161 945	.	92,4
	Finnish	9 027	1 025	200	63	10 315	.	5,9
	French	1 442	3 683	146	4 763	10 034	.	5,7
	German	1 589	7 696	279	9 292	18 856	.	10,8
	Russian	532	1 467	.	2 193	4 192	.	2,4
	Spanish	117	1 050	.	3 155	4 322	.	2,5
	Italian	0	0	.	114	114	.	0,1
	Sami	0	47	.	9	56	.	0,0
	Latin	0	0	.	390	390	.	0,2
	Other	137	14	38	35	224	.	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 11 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 363,450 pupils attended grades 1 to 6. 186,108 of the pupils were boys and 177,342 were girls. A total of 175,330 pupils attended grades 7 to 9. 89,634 of the pupils were boys and 85,696 were girls.

Data on the language choices of students studying comprehensive education elsewhere than at comprehensive schools (2,556) 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 (217.1 kB)

Tables

Appendix tables

Updated 24.5.2017

Referencing instructions:

Official Statistics of Finland (OSF): Subject choices of students [e-publication].
ISSN=1799-1056. Subject choices of comprehensive school pupils 2016. Helsinki: Statistics Finland [referred: 22.12.2024].
Access method: http://www.stat.fi/til/ava/2016/02/ava_2016_02_2017-05-24_tie_001_en.html