Mandatory Swedish

Mandatory Swedish

In Finland, Swedish is a mandatory school subject for Finnish-speaking pupils in the last three years of the primary education (grades 7 to 9), in the same way as Finnish is for the Swedish-speaking Finns. The so called other domestic language is also mandatory in high schools, vocational schools, and vocational universities. Furthermore, all university graduates must demonstrate a certain level of proficiency in other domestic language (the so-called public servant's Swedish/Finnish). Altogether 92% of Finnish citizens are native Finnish speakers, whereas 5.5% of the population report Swedish as their mother tongue.

According to the Finnish constitution, both Finnish and Swedish are national official languages. The national government as well as municipal governments in bilingual municipalities are required to serve citizens in their mother tongue, either Finnish or Swedish. The official term for both mandatory Swedish and Finnish is the other domestic language. However, the requirement to study Swedish is often referred to as pakkoruotsi, a somewhat charged term in Finnish meaning "mandatory Swedish", or "enforced Swedish".