The contrast of inclusion and school choice politics in Finland.

Equality has been a core value of Finnish as well as Scandinavian education systems throughout time. One of the manifestations of this value in Finland is principal to allocate children to neighbourhood schools   as emphasized by law (SA 628/1998, 2 §) as well as practice of inclusion to teach all children in same classrooms regardless of their needs. Since midd-1990s in Finland there has been a shift in pupil allocation policies to a more choice-based system, which has been long evident in other countries (see e.g. Seppänen 2003; Seppänen & Kosunen in press). School choice policies are currently studied and discussed in Finland, but rarely viewed together with phenomena of inclusion policies. Although attending to a neighbourhood school is emphasized by the law, there are also policies that deviate children’s schooling paths. Firstly, parents have right to apply to a school other than the allocated neighbourhood school. Furthermore, children can apply to particular teaching that emphasises some subjects more than core curriculum requires (e.g. music, sports or foreign language) and is typically organised as a group for these selected pupils, mainly in urban areas. These so called classes with a special emphasis can test abilities of the applicant towards an emphasised school subject (SA 628/1998, 28§) and thus select only the most suitable pupils. Secondly, those pupils who have special education needs are allocated to a school based on decision by a group of experts. Thus children with special education needs may not be able to attend to a neighbourhood school, as well as their parents may not have a choice of a school at all. The law states that parents of children with special educational needs are to be heard in decisions with the schooling of the child (SA 628/1998, 17 §).

Inclusion and school choice make contrasting counterparts in compulsory education of Finland. Inclusion has taken an effect in education system of Finland through international human rights movements such as Salamanca declaration (UNESCO 1994) that Finland signed alongside over 90 countries. This declaration demands for neighbourhood schools for all pupils. The very recent education law reform outlined a three-tiered learning support system for all children. Child’s need for learning support is defined in the levels of “basic, intensified or special support”, where only the special support system needs an official authority decision. This is to lower the level obtaining support and to lower medicalised decision-making. In contrast, significant share of pupils attend to classes that select their pupils on basis of aptitude in particular subject and these are attended more often by children of highly educated parents (Kalalahti et al. forthcoming; Kosunen & Seppänen et al. under review;; Seppänen et al. 2012; Silvennoinen et al. forthcoming).

This paper discusses how inclusion and school choice policies fit in education system of Finland, how it can be detected in the system in a case city, Turku, of Finland, with emphasis on special education and specialised education. How are these two policies influencing Finnish comprehensive education system? Has neoliberal value based policy taken inclusive education in such way that it is now used as a money saving device or can these two counterparts operate in the same system from the point of view of equality? Who has access to classes with a special emphasis: Are there any special education status pupils in these specialized classrooms? Furthermore, this paper will look at how schools are funded in terms of these classrooms by looking at statistical data sheets from the schools.

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