Ombudsman for Children in Finland

Press release 25.2.2010

Maria Kaisa Aula, the Ombudsman for Children, considers that schools should have a stronger role in the moral education of children in addition to teaching them skills and knowledge. She warns against taking an unduly narrow approach where the training of future workers and the learning of working life skills receive excessive focus at the expense of the wellbeing and civic skills of the children.

"The aim should be to support the personal growth and development of each individual child and teen as members of various communities and as active participants in their respective environments," she says in her statement concerning the forthcoming reform of the goals and distribution of lesson hours in basic education.

Maria Kaisa Aula expresses her wish that the goals of basic education should emphasise the importance of schools as an environment to ensure that children and teens have the opportunity to lead a balanced life and enjoy wellbeing at all times, not just at some time in the future.

"The UN Convention on the Rights of the Child supports the concept of a good life being of intrinsic value for the child here and now," she points out.

Maria Kaisa Aula further notes that schools have a wellbeing duty. Fulfilling this duty requires strengthening the sense of community, guaranteeing security, preventing bullying and engaging in closer cooperation with parents and guardians.

The Ombudsman for Children also notes that schools should of course continue to provide pupils with the necessary skills and knowledge, but the present scope of the national core curriculum should be reconsidered.

"We must not imagine that feeding pupils more and more information would expand their education and broaden their world view in proportion," she notes.

"A curriculum crammed too full of detailed specialist knowledge leads to unreasonably laborious lesson plans and hectic teaching frameworks that leave no room for the interaction that growth requires.

Instead of focusing on performance, we need more experiences in basic education. The knowledge being learned must be more closely linked to everyday needs. There should also be more of the sort of experiences enabled by skills-based subjects and arts subjects.

This would also help children and teens with special needs to function as part of their class and reduce the need to provide special teaching," Maria Kaisa Aula says.

The Ombudsman for Children further points out the potential that breaks, lunch hours and other time out of the classroom have for contributing to the moral education of children. Time must also be reserved for consulting children and allowing them to influence matters that affect their school work and environment.

"At the same time, we must remember the importance of playtime and recreation during the school day," she says.

The Government will decide on a new basic education decree possibly at the beginning of 2011. This would mean that the new national core curriculum would be in place by the 2014-2015 school year.
Read the statement >>