Home > Statistics > Providers of education and educational institutions > 2011 > Number of comprehensive schools 66 lower than one year before, the number of educational institutions fell below 4,000

Published: 16 February 2012

Number of comprehensive schools 66 lower than one year before, the number of educational institutions fell below 4,000

According to Statistics Finland's Register of Providers of Education and Register of Educational Institutions, there were 786 active providers of education and 3,934 educational institutions in which 1.94 million students pursued studies at the end of 2011. The number of all educational institutions has fallen by 15 per cent in five years. In 2006, the number of comprehensive schools was nearly 3,400, whereas at the end of 2011 their number was only just under 2,900.

Number of all educational institutions and comprehensive schools in 2006–2011

The number of providers of education was 7 lower than in 2010. Of the providers of education 47 per cent were municipalities or joint municipal boards, seven per cent were central government units and 44 per cent private. The remaining two per cent of the providers of education operated in the region of Åland. In 2011, there were 4 new providers of education to be added to the Register of Providers of Education. The number of educational institutions was 89 lower than the year before.

Educational institutions of the school system and numbers of students by type of educational institution in 2011

Type of educational institution	Number	Change from previous year 1)	Students 2)
11 Comprehensive schools	2 719	-66	522 400
12 Comprehensive school level special education schools	118	-11	6 200
15 Upper secondary general schools	388	-6	118 500
19 Comprehensive and upper secondary general level schools	39	-	25 400
21 Vocational institutes	129	-3	179 700
22 Special needs vocational institutes	6	-	5 200
23 Specialised vocational institutes	34	-	20 500
24 Vocational adult education centres	26	1	42 600
28 Fire, police and security service institutes	1	-	300
29 Military vocational institutes	13	-1	..
41 Polytechnics	27	-	148 600
42 Universities	16	-	168 300
43 Military academies	1	-	700
61 Music schools and colleges	88	-	66 700
62 Sports institutes	14	-	5 300
63 Folk high schools	82	-	20 300
64 Adult education centres	196	-3	533 300
65 Study circle centres	10	-	39 600
66 Summer universities	20	-	37 200
99 Other educational institutions	7	-	600
Total	3 934	-89	1 941 400

1) The change is described in the appendix table Changes from the previous year made to educational institutions of the school system by type of educational institution in 2011.
2) The data on the number of students are mainly as on 20 September 2011 and include the number of all students in educational institutions belonging to the type of educational institution independent of the level of education.

There were 2,719 active comprehensive schools which had 522,400 pupils. Special education schools at the comprehensive school level numbered 118 and they had 6,200 pupils. A total of 95 comprehensive schools or comprehensive school level special education schools were closed down or merged with another educational institution. Of these, 15 were educational institutions with under 20 pupils, 41 had between 20 and 49 pupils while 39 had at least 50 pupils. The number of closures was the highest in the region of North Ostrobothnia.

Of all comprehensive schools 74 per cent taught grades 1 to 6, 13 per cent taught grades 7 to 9 and 13 per cent of comprehensive schools taught all the grades from 1 through to 9. In all, 22 per cent of comprehensive schools had under 50 pupils and six per cent had over 500 pupils.

Source: Education Statistics. Statistics Finland

Inquiries: Mika Witting 09 1734 3571, koulutustilastot@stat.fi

Director in charge: Jari Tarkoma

Tables

Appendix tables

• Appendix table 1. Changes from previous year made to educational institutions of the school system by type of educational institution 2011 (16.2.2012)

---

Updated 16.2.2012