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Basic data of the statistics

Data description

The statistics on providers of education and educational institutions describe the network of education providers and educational institutions that is administered by public authorities and changes that have taken place in the network during the year, the address data for educational institutions, and the total number of students on 20 September as an indicator of the school size.

Statistical population

The statistics on providers of education and educational institutions are based on the register of providers of education and the register of educational institutions maintained by Statistics Finland. These are updated with data collected from education providers and educational institutions, as well as with licence data of the Ministry of Education and Culture on education providers and maintainers of educational institutions. The data represent total data.

Statistical unit

The statistical unit is educational institution or provider of education. The data are identified and aggregated based on the educational institution ID or the Business ID.

Unit of measure

The units of measure of the statistics include the number of educational institutions or providers of education and the size of the educational institution measured by the number of students.

Reference period

The statistics describe the situation on the last day of the reference year.

Reference area

The statistics cover the whole of Finland. The most detailed reporting level of the data is the municipality.

Sector coverage

Providers of education are classified by the main activity of the provider.

Time coverage

The statistics were published for the first time in 2004. The data are always published according to the situation on the last day of the reference year.

Frequency of dissemination

The data are published once a year.

Concepts

Education

An organised activity, the aim of which is to produce competence based on teaching.

Comment:
Education can be divided into education and training leading to a qualification or degree and non-qualification studies.

Educational institution

An educational institution refers to an administrative unit with a principal or other head, which has teachers and other personnel in its service (role of employers), and which is liable to keep books and compile other documentation, in which students are registered, whose activities are regulated by a legal act or decree, which follows a national curriculum, and which is financed and controlled by a public authority. An educational institution does not refer to a school building or facility. A new educational institution is established, an educational institution is abolished or merged with another educational institution at the decision of the organiser of education (maintainer of the educational institution) or a public authority.

Statistics Finland has assigned an individualised educational institution ID to each educational institution. Educational institutions are classified according to a classification of types of educational institutions.

Educational system

The Finnish educational system is comprised of the following:

Pre-primary education is provided in Finland to 6-year-old children, usually at children's day care homes. Some 6-year-old children receive pre-primary education in comprehensive schools. Attendance of pre-primary education has been compulsory since 2015.
Comprehensive school education is general knowledge education provided for entire age cohorts. All children permanently resident in Finland must attend compulsory education. Compulsory education starts in the year of the child's seventh birthday.
Compulsory education finishes when the syllabus of comprehensives school education has been completed (9-year comprehensive school), or 10 years from the start of compulsory education. In exceptional cases compulsory education may start already at the age of six and last 11 years due to a disability or illness. A student who has received a leaving certificate from comprehensive school in the same year or in the year before it may continue to attend optional additional education (10th grade).

Post-comprehensive school education, or upper secondary general education and vocational education represent secondary level of education. Upper secondary general school education is education leading to a matriculation examination. Its scope is three years and it gives general eligibility to further education. Vocational education can be either educational institution-based or apprenticeship training. In apprenticeship training, most of the studying is comprised of learning through practical work tasks at a workplace. The qualifications are initial vocational qualifications attained in three years, which also give general eligibility to further polytechnic or university studies.

Further and specialist vocational qualifications represent further vocational education. They, as well as initial vocational qualifications can be attained in a skills examination that can be taken irrespective of the way of acquisition of professional skills, and in which skills can be proven on the basis of preparatory education for a skills examination or work experience.

Attainment of university of applied sciences degrees takes 3.5 to 4.5 years and higher university of applied sciences degrees requiring work practice 1-1.5 years. Attainment of lower university degrees takes three years while higher university degrees take two years longer. Attainers of higher level university degrees may continue their studies to licentiate and doctorate level degrees.

Language of teaching of an educational institution

In the statistics on providers of education and educational institution the language of teaching is based on a public authority's decision about it. An educational institution may also provide teaching in a language other than that stated in the decision.

Languages of teaching of educational institutions are grouped as follows:
1 Finnish
2 Swedish
3 Finnish/Swedish
4 English
5 Sami
9 Other.

The language of teaching of an educational institution is Finnish/Swedish when the educational institution provides teaching in both languages.

Level of education

Category into which programmes leading to a qualification or degree are divided on the basis of the requirement level.

Comment:
Selection to education on a particular level of education often requires completion of a lower level of education.

The level of education is measured on the basis of both the overall duration or target time of the education and the requirement level.

Levels of education: early childhood education and care and pre-primary education (duration varies), primary education (6 years), lower secondary education (3 years, in total 9 years from the beginning of comprehensive education), upper secondary education (3 years, in total 12 years from the beginning of comprehensive education), post-secondary non-tertiary education (1-2 years, in total 13-14 years from the beginning of comprehensive education), lowest tertiary education (2-3 years, in total 14-15 years from the beginning of comprehensive education), bachelor's or equivalent level (3-4 years, in total 15-16 years from the beginning of comprehensive education), master's or equivalent level (5-6 years, in total 17-18 years from the beginning of comprehensive education) and second stage of tertiary education (2-4 years, in total 19-22 years from the beginning of comprehensive education).

The level of education indicator cannot be calculated directly on the basis of the duration presented in this concept.

Provider of education

In the statistics on providers of education and educational institutions and in the statistics on vocational education, providers of education refer to bodies entrusted with the task of providing education. The task of provision of education is defined in law (comprehensive school education) or in a licence to provide education or maintain an educational institution granted by the Ministry of Education or similar public authority. Providers or education are usually municipalities, joint municipal boards, or private corporations or foundations. Statistics Finland has assigned an individual system ID for each provider of education.

Sector of education

Comprehensive education, general upper secondary education, vocational education, university of applied sciences education, university education.

Student

In the statistics on providers of education and educational institutions, students refer to students studying at educational institutions within the school system at the time of the inquiry. The time of the inquiry is the week containing the 20th of September for study circle centres, the entire autumn term for folk high schools (estimate of number of students) and 20 September for other educational institutions.

Type of owner of educational institution

In the statistics on providers of education and educational institutions owners of educational institutions are divided into the following groups:
1 Private
2 State
3 Municipality
4 Joint municipal board
5 Region of Åland
9 Other.

University education

Tertiary education provided by universities.

Comment:
The objective of the education is a bachelor’s or master’s degree or a scientific postgraduate degree, which are licentiate's and doctoral degrees.
Education not leading to a qualification or degree can also be completed.

Vocational education and training

Education and training completed after the comprehensive education syllabus, aimed at producing vocational competence.

Comment:
Initial, further and specialist vocational qualifications can be obtained in vocational education and training.
In addition to completing a qualification, parts of a qualification can also be completed in vocational education and training.

Accuracy, reliability and timeliness

Overall accuracy

The main source of errors concerns insufficient location data of educational institutions. The addresses reported in data collections do not always correspond with the address in the building information system.

Timeliness

The data are published two months after the reference period.

Punctuality

There are no delays between the release calendar and the actual release date.

Comparability

Comparability - geographical

The statistics cover all providers of education and educational institutions in Finland. Of the providers of basic artistic education, the statistics include those who also arrange education leading to a qualification. Each educational institution is registered once according to its main place of establishment.

Comparability - over time

The statistics are comparable both over time and geographically. The classification of educational institutions changed in 1999. Therefore data published prior to 1999 are not directly comparable with the more recent data. The regional breakdown follows the latest reference year.

Coherence - cross domain

The reference period for the statistics on providers of education and educational institutions is the last day of the year. However, for the statistics on pre-primary and comprehensive school education, the reference date is 20 September. Changes in the network of educational institutions during the autumn term can cause deviations in the numbers of educational institutions.

Coherence - internal

The reference period for the statistics on providers of education and educational institutions is the last day of the year. However, for the statistics on pre-primary and comprehensive school education, the reference date is 20 September. Changes in the network of educational institutions during the autumn term can cause deviations in the numbers of educational institutions.

Source data and data collections

Source data

The data are based on data collected from education providers and educational institutions. The data collection covers all educational institutions and education providers operating in Finland. 

Data collection

The data are collected using an online survey.

Frequency of data collection

The data are collected annually.

Methods

Data compilation

Not relevant to these statistics
 

Data validation

The data are compared with data obtained in the collection of student data, which enables identifying possible changes in the network of educational institutions during the autumn term. In addition, the data on the maintainers of educational institutions in the register of educational institutions are compared with data in the register of providers of education.

Principles and outlines

Contact organisation

Statistics Finland

Contact organisation unit

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Legal acts and other agreements

The compilation of statistics is guided by the general act of the national statistical service, the Statistics Act (280/2004, amend. 361/2013). Only the necessary data that are not available from administrative data sources are collected from data suppliers. Index series are published so that no individual enterprise’s data or development can be deduced from them.

Confidentiality - policy

The data protection of data collected for statistical purposes is guaranteed in accordance with the requirements of the Statistics Act (280/2004), the Act on the Openness of Government Activities (621/1999), the EU's General Data Protection Regulation (EU) 2016/679 and the Data Protection Act (1050/2018). The data materials are protected at all stages of processing with the necessary physical and technical solutions. Statistics Finland has compiled detailed directions and instructions for confidential processing of the data. Employees have access only to the data essential for their duties. The premises where unit-level data are processed are not accessible to outsiders. Members of the personnel have signed a pledge of secrecy upon entering the service. Violation of data protection is punishable.

Further information: Data protection | Statistics Finland (stat.fi)

Confidentiality - data treatment

The statistics do not contain any data that need to be protected.

Release policy

Statistics Finland’s release calendar lists in advance all the statistical data and publications to be released over the year. Statistical releases can be found under statistics-specific releases. Statistical data are released on the Internet at 8 am, unless otherwise indicated. The calendar is updated on weekdays. Statistics Finland’s release calendar for the coming year is published every year in December.

Data sharing

Data of the statistics are reported to UNESCO, the OECD and Eurostat in the UOE education statistics survey and in the related separate surveys. In addition, geographic data concerning the statistics are available via an open interface.

Data of the statistics are made available to the Ministry of Education and Culture and the Finnish National Agency for Education in accordance with the H9098-OKM-OPH information service agreement.

Accessibility and clarity

The data are published in the form of a statistical release and database tables. Geographic data concerning the educational institutions are available via an open interface and the addresses for the educational institutions are available as a chargeable service.

Data revision - policy

Revisions – i.e. improvements in the accuracy of statistical data already published – are a normal feature of statistical production and result in improved quality of statistics. The principle is that statistical data are based on the best available data and information concerning the statistical phenomenon. On the other hand, the revisions are communicated as transparently as possible in advance. Advance communication ensures that the users can prepare for the data revisions.

The reason why data in statistical releases become revised is often caused by the data becoming supplemented. Then the new, revised statistical figure is based on a wider information basis and describes the phenomenon more accurately than before.

Revisions of statistical data may also be caused by the calculation method used, such as annual benchmarking or updating of weight structures. Changes of base years and used classifications may also cause revisions to data.

Quality assessment

The register of educational institutions constitutes the population of Education Statistics. The quality of data must be high, and quality is assessed in relation to other statistics.

Quality assurance

Quality management requires comprehensive guidance of activities. The quality management framework of the field of statistics is the European Statistics Code of Practice (CoP). The quality criteria of Official Statistics of Finland are also compatible with the European Statistics Code of Practice.

Further information: Quality management | Statistics Finland (stat.fi)

User access

Data are released to all users at the same time.

Statistical experts

Mika Witting
Senior Statistician
029 551 3032