Intensive language studies may expedite granting of citizenship
Calls for more flexible language skill requirements
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Quick and successful studies of Finnish could shorten the minimum requirement of how long a foreign resident is required to have lived in Finland before citizenship is granted. An amendment to the law on citizenship is under preparation at the Ministry of the Interior, aimed at more flexibility in the naturalisation of foreign residents.
A government proposal is to be submitted to Parliament in the autumn of 2009, and if it is passed, the new law would take effect in 2010.
One measure under consideration is reducing the minimum number of years of residence to five or four. Especially those who have completed an academic degree in Finland are to be encouraged to stay in the country.
Currently, getting citizenship requires satisfactory knowledge of Finnish (or Swedish) - a score of three on a scale of one to five.
“The purpose is to open the language requirement. On the other hand, there could be some flexibility with so-called vulnerable groups, such as the elderly, or those without reading or writing skills, but on the other hand, it could be used to as an incentive to encourage people to learn Finnish well”, ponders Sonja Hämäläinen of the Ministry of the Interior.
Language and orientation education is to be intensified as a part of the integration training of all immigrants who come to Finland for more than a year.
Currently, the Finnish language education of adults, especially, is quite splintered, and generally inadequate, says Maisa Martin, Professor of the Finnish Language at the University of Jyväskylä. Her speciality is Finnish as a foreign language.
She says that the basic problem is that language education is part of labour training, that is given more to serve the needs of using machinery, than on educational principles.
According to Professor Martin, there are many shortcomings in how language teaching is organised. First of all, people have to wait for a long time to get onto a language course. Furthermore, there is no flexible transfer from one course to another. Instead, an immigrant may have to “keep repeating the same course several times”.
The courses are also too short. “Who can learn a new language in three months?”
The teachers, who are hired on short-term contracts, face the risk of burning out, as contracts comprising 40 hours of teaching a week are granted to the lowest bidder.
Martin says that another problem, even with qualified teachers of Finnish for foreigners, is a tendency to emphasise grammatical forms at the expense of communication, which does not suit everyone.
On the other hand, Russians, for instance, sometimes insist on traditional language teaching, and look down on group work as “playing”.
Another problem is the shortage of language teaching for advanced learners. “Labour authorities usually only buy beginning courses”, says Johanna Heimonen of the Palmenia Centre for Continuing Education at the University of Helsinki.
She said that immigrants with an academic background sometimes have a need for very advanced courses, when faced by a need to officially qualify for a profession in Finland.
“We used to get people coming here to study Finnish who had been in Finland for 10 to 15 years. Nowadays, people seem to come a bit earlier”, Heimonen says.
“However, the problem is, who is to pay for the demanding language teaching. Immigrants have grown accustomed to the idea that in Finland, society pays for things, but naturally, not everyone can afford it him- or herself”, Heimonen ponders.
Helsingin Sanomat
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| 26.1.2009 - TODAY |
 Intensive language studies may expedite granting of citizenship |
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