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Published: 23 May 2019

Majority of comprehensive school pupils study English

According to Statistics Finland, English was the most commonly studied foreign language in comprehensive schools in the autumn term 2018. Seventy-four per cent of students in grades 1 to 6 studied English. The share of students studying English increased by three percentage points from the previous year in grades 1 to 6. Almost all students in grades 7 to 9 studied English. Nineteen per cent of students in grades 1 to 6 and 92 per cent of students in grades 7 to 9 studied Swedish as a foreign language.

Language choices of comprehensive school pupils in 2018

		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	256 783	16 898	14	.	273 695	74.0	.
	Swedish	3 323	12 306	53 284	.	68 913	18.6	.
	Finnish	19 015	1 151	11	.	20 177	5.5	.
	French	3 402	4 191	17	.	7 610	2.1	.
	German	3 282	11 313	16	.	14 611	3.9	.
	Russian	1 117	1 102	0	.	2 219	0.6	.
	Spanish	832	5 932	0	.	6 764	1.8	.
	Italian	0	0	0	.	0	0.0	.
	Sami	9	236	0	.	245	0.1	.
	Other	442	149	13	.	604	0.2	.
Grades 7-9	English	166 060	12 785	206	80	179 131	.	99.5
	Swedish	1 651	11 432	153 400	2	166 485	.	92.5
	Finnish	9 095	1 300	211	2	10 608	.	5.9
	French	1 614	3 490	193	3 653	8 950	.	5.0
	German	1 680	7 786	242	8 714	18 422	.	10.2
	Russian	512	1 427	0	1 726	3 665	.	2.0
	Spanish	211	1 270	0	3 793	5 274	.	2.9
	Italian	0	0	0	75	75	.	0.0
	Sami	3	49	0	3	55	.	0.0
	Latin	0	0	0	429	429	.	0.2
	Other	167	20	23	42	252	.	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 5 per cent of the pupils attending grades 7 to 9, mainly as an optional or elective foreign language.

A total of 370,020 pupils attended grades 1 to 6. 189,545 of the pupils were boys and 180,475 were girls. A total of 180,058 pupils attended grades 7 to 9. 92,100 of the pupils were boys and 87,958 were girls.

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 2018, boys (23.5.2019)
• Appendix table 2. Language choices of comprehensive school pupils in 2018, girls (23.5.2019)

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Updated 23.5.2019