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Published: 13 February 2018

A total of 2,300 comprehensive schools in operation, the share of joint schools growing

According to Statistics Finland’s register of providers of education and register of educational institutions, there were 728 active providers of education and 3,315 educational institutions in which 1.85 million students pursued studies at the end of 2017. A total of 2,276 comprehensive schools were in operation, 19 per cent of which were joint schools comprising grades 1 to 9. The share of joint schools in comprehensive schools has risen by 10 percentage points in ten years.

Number of comprehensive schools by grades 2008–2017

There were 2,276 active comprehensive schools which had 539,600 pupils. Special education schools at the comprehensive school level numbered 73 and they had 4,400 pupils. A total of 72 comprehensive schools or comprehensive school level special education schools were closed down or merged with another educational institution. Of these, 4 were educational institutions with under 20 pupils, 23 had between 20 and 49 pupils while 45 had at least 50 pupils. The number of closures was the highest in the region of Uusimaa.

Comprehensive schools are more often than earlier joint schools comprising grades 1 to 9. In ten years, the number of primary schools comprising grades 1 to 6 has gone down by 31 per cent, while the number of joint schools has grown by 56 per cent. In 2008, there were 2,300 primary schools, while in 2017 the corresponding figure is 1,589.

Educational institutions of the school system and numbers of students by type of educational institution in 2017

Type of educational institution	Number	Change from previous year 1)	Students 2)
11 Comprehensive schools	2 276	-63	539 600
12 Comprehensive school level special education schools	73	-2	4 400
15 Upper secondary general schools	340	-2	109 500
19 Comprehensive and upper secondary general level schools	41	-	28 100
21 Vocational institutes	96	-3	179 100
22 Special needs vocational institutes	6	-	5 100
23 Specialised vocational institutes	26	-1	30 500
24 Vocational adult education centres	20	-3	27 600
28 Fire, police and security service institutes	1	-	200
29 Military vocational institutes	6	-	..
41 Universities of applied sciences	25	-1	144 900
42 Universities	14	-	157 800
43 Military academies	1	-	1 000
61 Music schools and colleges	84	-1	64 100
62 Sports institutes	14	-	9 000
63 Folk high schools	73	-1	18 100
64 Adult education centres	181	-3	464 400
65 Study circle centres	12	-	30 700
66 Summer universities	20	-	31 600
99 Other educational institutions	6	-	400
Total	3 315	-80	1 846 100

1) The exact change is described in the appendix table 1. Changes from the previous year made to educational institutions of the school system by type of educational institution in 2017.
2) The data on the number of students are mainly as on 20 September 2017 and include the number of all students in educational institutions belonging to the type of educational institution independent of the level of education. Data on the number of students at universities, universities of applied sciences, vocational institutions and upper secondary institutions is preliminary.

The number of providers of education was nine lower than in 2016. Of the providers of education, 47 per cent were municipalities or joint municipal authorities, six per cent were central government units and 45 per cent private. The remaining three per cent of providers of education operate in the region of Åland. In 2017, seven new providers of education were added to the register of providers of education. The number of educational institutions was 80 lower than in the year before.

According to preliminary data for 2017, there were 1.29 million students in education leading to a qualification or degree. These data derive from education statistics compiled by Statistics Finland. Data on the subject matter are published on Statistics Finland’s websites on the statistics on students and qualifications of educational institutions, pre-primary and comprehensive school education, upper secondary general education, vocational education, university of applied sciences education, university education and adult education of educational institutions.

Source: Education Statistics. Statistics Finland

Inquiries: Mika Witting 029 551 3530, koulutustilastot@stat.fi

Director in charge: Jari Tarkoma

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Tables

Appendix tables

• Appendix table 1. Changes from previous year made to educational institutions of the school system by type of educational institution 2017 (13.2.2018)

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Updated 13.2.2018