Curriculum, subjects, number of hours

Curriculum

The Government decides on the general national objectives of general upper secondary education for young people. Government also decides the allocation of the time to be used for instruction in different subjects and for student counselling.  

The national core curriculum (Lukion opetussuunnitelman perusteet 2019) is determined by the Finnish National Agency for Education. The national core curriculum includes the objectives and core contents of different subjects. It also includes the principles of pupil assessment, pupil welfare and educational guidance.

Education providers and schools draw up their own local curricula based on the national curricula. The local curricula provide students with an opportunity for individual choices of studies, including often also instruction given by other education providers.

The general upper secondary education is based on study units with no specific year-classes. The studies take 2 to 4 years to complete, but most students graduate in 3 years. There are compulsory and optional studies: optional studies are divided into national elective and school-specific elective studies.

The scope of a study unit is defined as credits. The students complete at minimum of 150 credits. One credit is equivalent to an average of 14 hours 15 minutes of teaching time.

The curriculum includes various types of studies, such as compulsory national studies that follow the national curriculum, and elective national studies, which are also based on the national curriculum but are optional. Additionally, there are local elective studies designed to broaden and deepen the subject range offered, allowing students to select study units based on their interests and educational goals.

Compulsory studies consist of 94 or 102 credits depending on whether the student has chosen the advanced mathematics syllabus or the basic mathematics syllabus.

The rest of the credits are elective studies:

• minimum 20 credits are national elective studies
• the rest (minimum 28/36 credits) can be national elective or school-specific elective studies.

General upper secondary school students plan their own individual learning path according to this structure.

There are optional upper secondary school diplomas for students to demonstrate their skills and knowledge of following areas:

• visual arts
• physical education
• music
• theatre
• media
• crafts
• dance
• home economics.

General upper secondary school diplomas complement the skills and knowledge which the students have achieved and demonstrated in general upper secondary school leaving certificate and matriculation examination.

Subjects in general upper secondary education

The following table outlines the distribution of lesson hours in general upper secondary education for young people. To arrange the schoolwork in each school year, there is an overall school schedule, which is based on the curriculum.

The duration of a lesson is at least 45 minutes in a general upper secondary school and at least 40 minutes in a general upper secondary school for adults. One credit corresponds to 19 lessons, each 45 minutes long, meaning that one credit equals 14,5 hours of studying. To reach the number of lessons, the number of credits on the time allocation table should be multiplied by 19.

All students study at least 2 languages and studying Finnish or Swedish is compulsory as the other state language (considered a foreign language in Eurydice reports). The language chosen depends on the language of schooling.

ICT is not a separate subject but schools may offer optional courses in ICT. More important than separate subjects are wide-ranging cross-curricular themes described in the national core curriculum. Cross-curricular themes are transversal competence areas crossing the boundaries of individual subjects. The key task of transversal competences is to provide an integrative element to the general upper secondary studies. The areas of transversal competences comprise the common objectives of the general upper secondary school subjects.

The six areas of transversal competences are:

1) well-being competence

2) interaction competence

3) multidisciplinary and creative competence

4) societal competence

5) ethical and environmental competence

6) global and cultural competence

Transversal competences help the students apply in practice the knowledge and skills they learn while studying the various subjects. Transversal competences refer to cognitive skills and meta skills which lay the foundation for learning and competence as well as the kind of attributes the students need in their studies, work, hobbies, and daily life. They also create the preconditions for acquiring the knowledge and skills which enable the students to cope with change in an increasingly digital and complex world.

As mentioned in chapter 6.1, some general upper secondary schools have special educational tasks, granted by the The Ministry of Education and Culture. These specialised upper secondary schools emphasize their instruction in accordance with their special educational tasks, but they do offer the opportunity to complete an ordinary study programme. Specialised upper secondary schools primarily function in the following fields

• music
• visual arts
• creative dramatics
• art and media
• languages
• mathematics and natural sciences
• sports
• entrepreneurship

There are 20 general upper secondary schools which offer instruction leading to the International Baccalaureate IB and one to Deutsche Internationale Abitur (Tilastopalvelu Vipunen).

Teaching methods and materials

Teachers have the autonomy to decide on the teaching methods and materials. Digital learning materials are the most common materials used. Learning materials are mostly produced by commercial publishers. There is no inspection of learning materials. The Finnish National Agency for Education produces materials with a small circulation and for minority groups subsidised by the government.

Study material - books, tools and devices - are offered to students in general upper secondary schools free of charge.

There is no official regulation regarding homework.