Mandatory Swedish - Opinions

Opinions

In many cases, pupils have negative expectations and experiences of learning Swedish which may foster a negative attitude towards the Swedish language and culture. This behaviour is claimed to hark back to the time when Finland was a part of Sweden (see Sweden–Finland), and Swedish was the language of prestige while Finnish was looked down on by the government. (Interestingly, however, very similar negative attitudes and motivational problems have arisen in Ireland against mandatory Irish, even though it is supposed to be the national language, so the lack of motivation in learning a language spoken by a small minority may not necessarily be due to nationalistic feelings among the Finnish-speaking majority.) Negative opinions towards studying Swedish are also grounded in the fact that mandatory Swedish is taught throughout the country, even though there are few Swedish-speakers in mainland Finland outside the coastal area by the Baltic Sea, and thus contact with Swedish-speakers is rare for most Finns. This fact can for some make the policy of bilingualism seem artificial, but the basic curriculum remains the same for the entire country. On the other hand there is quite a lot of migration to the regions where Swedish is spoken, such as the Helsinki region.

According to a study published in 2002 students are interested in the Swedish language, and find it an important part of education, but they perceived Swedish being compulsory lessened their motivation (this argument has been made very frequently in the public debate). The experiment of making the Swedish test voluntary in the matriculation examination (the completion of which is a de facto requirement for university enrollment) was declared successful and was made permanent: 88% of students take the Swedish test voluntarily. This, however, can be argued not to reflect students' motivation, as after studying Swedish compulsorily for many years, they naturally prefer to complete the Swedish test of the examination. The percentage has since been constantly dropping and was 67% in 2009 (less than 50% of boys).

There has also been a lot of criticism of the methodology used to teach Swedish and the lack of competence in many of the teachers. This has contributed to students' lack of motivation to study Swedish, and many may not learn to speak the language beyond a very basic level. Some students argue that they will never need Swedish as its utility in the Finnish job market is limited to a few fields. Moreover, the rationale of mandatory tuition in Swedish and other subjects is to give the students more of a general knowledge base, and not train them for a specific field.

In addition to the direct costs of the tuition, some argue that mandatory Swedish effectively replaces elective courses in languages such as French, German and Russian, that these persons argue are more important than Swedish in a globalized world. University students are required not only to master their selected field, but also to study at least two languages beside their mother tongue, one of which is obligatorily Swedish for Finnish-speakers. As study material is often in English, this effectively removes the free choice; the two "voluntarily chosen" languages must be Swedish and English. Despite being a neighbour of Russia, it is in practice possible to study Russian only in some schools (due to low interest or it not being offered); only 1.5% of the Finns have a good knowledge of Russian. Also very few Finns speak Estonian (which is not taught in most schools), a language of the same Finnic language group as Finnish, and national language of Finland's southern neighbour Estonia, although Finnish is popular in Estonia.

Sentiments toward mandatory Swedish vary. Many prominent politicians (both Finnish- and Swedish-speaking) wholeheartedly support mandatory Swedish in schools, while others oppose it. There have been numerous petitions and other similar campaigns arranged by some small but dedicated organizations to pressure the lawmakers to abolish mandatory Swedish, but to date, they have had no significant impact on the established policy. Thus, while the ongoing debate is often heated and passionate, the support for mandatory Swedish tuition remains strong enough among politicians for the government not to consider a change of policy.

Mandatory Swedish is supported by the main political parties in Finland, the National Coalition Party, the Centre Party, the Social Democrats and the Left Alliance. However, the government recently dropped the requirement to take Swedish (or Finnish in the case of the Swedish-speaking minority) as part of the high school matriculation examination.