Nearly one in four Helsinki schoolchildren will come from immigrant families in 2020

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The proportion of students of immigrant origin among the schoolchildren at Helsinki’s comprehensive schools is rocketing. According to estimates, the share of pupils who speak a language other than Finnish or Swedish as their mother tongue will be 23.3 per cent of all students in 2025.
      The figures are based on a survey relating to a population prognosis and an estimated demand for services in the Greater Helsinki area that was published last summer.
      At present, some 11 per cent of students in Helsinki’s comprehensive schools have a foreign background, while in 2002 their share was just six per cent.
     
The change is attributable to two reasons. For one thing, the number of Finnish- and Swedish-speaking pupils has gone down concomitant with diminishing age groups, while secondly, the number of pupils with a foreign background has been growing. According to the prognosis, the number of pupils speaking Somali and other Central African languages will grow most rapidly.
      Another small yet growing category includes pupils who speak Kurdish as their mother tongue. Russian-speaking students represent another burgeoning group.
     
In Helsinki, Espoo, Vantaa, and Kauniainen, it is estimated that the proportion of pupils with a foreign background will be 19 per cent in 2025. Currently, the share in this area is about nine per cent.
      Prognoses about the proportion of pupils of foreign origin are not made per school district or per school. Within the city these pupils are scattered unevenly, says Pekka Vuori from the City of Helsinki Urban Facts.
      "In Helsinki there are already now a couple of schools in which one third of pupils speak a mother tongue other than Finnish or Swedish. On the other hand, there are also schools with practically no pupils with a foreign background", notes Vuori.
     
Vuori predicts that by 2015 there will be schools in which the proportion of pupils with an immigrant background is more than 50 per cent.
      On average, these pupils are more expensive for the city. While a Finnish-speaking pupil costs EUR 7,000 per year on the average, the costs caused by a student with an immigrant background amount to approximately EUR 10,500 per year.
      The reason for the higher costs is the preparatory training, offered to all children of comprehensive school age who have moved to Finland. Such training gives them tuition in Finnish, while they are also entitled to instruction in their mother tongue throughout comprehensive school. In addition, pupils of immigrant origin are offered integration support.
      Moreover, the instruction of a student’s own religion is also bound to increase costs.
     
It is difficult to estimate how fast the number of students of immigrant origin will increase, said Katri Kuukka from the City of Helsinki Education Department.
      "For example, as a result of residence permit decisions made on applications submitted on the basis of family ties, more students can suddenly arrive in a certain area", Kuukka reports.
      Next autumn, possibly around new 100 students of immigrant origin will start school in Helsinki, as all of them have been granted residence permits on the basis of family ties. However, their arrival was not known when the number of pupils for 2008 was set.
      Kuukka notes further that despite the diminishing age groups this development is to be taken into account when evaluating the overall costs for the school system.
      On the other hand, pupils with various backgrounds present a challenge for teachers as well.
     
”They do not form a homogeneous group but many different groups”, notes Jukka Talvitie from the Helsinki office of the Trade Union of Education in Finland.
      According to Talvitie, teachers along with other professionals should start discussing how the integration of pupils into Finnish society could be handled as successfully as possible.


Previously in HS International Edition:
  Illiterate immigrants learn Finnish in order to train for further education (27.11.2007)
  Immigrants in Helsinki learning Finnish and finding work more easily (26.5.2006)

Links:
  City of Helsinki Education Department
  City of Helsinki Urban Facts

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