Radio | News week in plain Finnish | Saturday 31.5.2025

Mother tongue teaching in vocational schools.

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The topic of this week’s news is mother tongue teaching in vocational schools. It has changed a lot.

Mother tongue teaching in vocational schools


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Researcher Penni Pietilä taught herself to weld because she wanted to get a better feel for engineering studies. Photo: Silja Viitala / Yle

There has been a lot of talk about vocational schools in Finland this week. Many are concerned about the quality of teaching.

Researcher Penni Pietilä observed over a hundred native language lessons in 2018–2019. She wrote a doctoral dissertation on the subject. It is required for a doctoral degree.

Teaching at vocational schools changed a lot in 2018. The reform is called the AMIS reform.

Pietilä saw a lot of problems.

Degrees became competency-based. Students only study what they do not yet have expertise in.

In addition, you can start studying at any time, even in the middle of the academic year.

Schools are free to decide how much they teach general subjects. Mother tongue is one such subject.

Penni Pietilä noticed problems

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Researcher Penni Pietilä monitored over a hundred native language lessons in 2018–2019. Photo: Silja Viitala / Yle

Researcher Penni Pietilä noticed that teaching in vocational schools was becoming confusing.

Class schedules suddenly changed, and students were no longer studying in the same group.

The mother tongue was taught much less than before, and the goals were low. There was as little studying and teaching as possible.

One teacher says in Pietilä’s doctoral dissertation that nothing should be taught anymore.

Language only for working life needs?

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Some people think that vocational school students do not need mother tongue instruction. Photo: Petri Aaltonen / Yle

Pietilä noticed that teaching the mother tongue in vocational schools has only one goal: to be useful in working life.

Students practice, for example, responding to a request for quotation or writing a press release.

However, the law states that vocational schools must prepare active citizens.

Students must also have the skills for further studies.

Vocational school and education

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For example, following the news is not easy for all vocational school students. Photo: Silja Viitala / Yle

Penni Pietilä says that education is even a curse word in vocational schools.

People can find themselves in different parts of society if some are unable to follow the news or write long texts, for example.

Many people say that general education is not of interest to vocational school students.

Pietilä thinks that interest is a poor indicator. In mathematics, there is no question about whether, for example, addition and subtraction are interesting.

Repetition

The topic of the week was vocational school education. In particular, mother tongue education has decreased.

The researcher says that teaching is too focused on working life.

Here was Uutisviikko in plain Finnish - see you tomorrow!