Project to revive status of Swedish in Finnish schools

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A number of prominent individuals are concerned about the status of Swedish as Finland’s second official language in Finnish schools. On Wednesday they launched a project called Svenska nu, intent on the enlivenment and revival of the Swedish language teaching at comprehensive schools and upper secondary schools.
      The aim is to stimulate pupils' interest in the language through Swedish culture as well as to encourage opinion leaders to support the Swedish language teaching in schools.
     
Over the course of this spring, a number of Swedish authors and musicians will attend classes, and a Swedish movie will be shown at schools.
      The project will be conducted by the Hanasaari Swedish-Finnish Cultural Centre and financed by the state of Finland, the Finnish-Swedish Cultural Foundation, and Svenska kulturfonden ("Swedish Cultural Foundation").
     
The project is headed by a 32-member delegation, comprising mainly Finnish social and business figures. The Chairman of the delegation and the protector for the project is Paavo Lipponen, who until recently was the Speaker of Parliament.
      Lipponen said that he is "very worried" about the dominating position of English in the lives of Finnish youngsters. He feels that Swedish is part of the Finnish identity.
      "One cannot understand today’s Finnish culture unless one sees the contribution of Swedish to it", Lipponen said in his speech in Hanasaari.
      Lipponen noted further that in anticipation of bad times the two neighbours should go ”hand in hand”.
     
The delegation of the project involves also for example Esko Aho, the President of the Finnish National Fund for Research and Development (Sitra), Kari Raivio, the Chancellor of the University of Helsinki, Professor Matti Klinge, Irina Krohn, the Managing Director of the Finnish Film Foundation, and Minister Aatos Erkko, the main owner of SanomaWSOY and its daily newspaper Helsingin Sanomat.


Links:
  Swedish-Finnish Cultural Foundation

Helsingin Sanomat