The Folk High School - a part of Finland's adult education
In the Finnish educational system, the role of the folk high schools is to provide adult education and liberal adult education. The teaching in folk high schools is mainly general education, but initial and further vocational training is also offered. There are about 90 folk high schools in operation all over Finland, in cities as well as rural communities. Most of them are owned by private ideological organizations, foundations or corporations. Legislation has granted them far-reaching autonomy and freedom. A majority of them teach in Finnish, with less than 20 teaching in Swedish; one of these being located in Åland. All of the folk high schools are residential schools: studying is full-time and it is possible to have room and board at the schools.
Voluntarism and ideological backgrounds
Folk high schools are typically characterized by being residential, having ideological and pedagogical freedom, and by being responsible for seeking their own objectives and choosing what kinds of programmes to offer.
Since studying at a folk high school is full-time, a residential setting providing room and board is a necessary prerequisite of a folk high school. Being residential is one of the special strengths of folk high schools and effectively serves their educational objectives.
In accordance with their origins, folk high schools still operate on a voluntary basis. There are no legislative obligations for anyone to found them. The institution or organization founding a folk high school has an ideological foundation - social, religious, ethical etc.
Folk high schools share the fact that they are based on an ideological foundation, but this is also what separates them from one another. Their different ideologies reflect the plurality of our society and the varying philosophical and religious outlooks existing within it.
Pedagogic freedom means that a folk high school can independently shape its activities: teaching and education, objectives, curriculums and teaching methods. Around 70% of the educational goals in a folk high school's curriculum are freely chosen, i.e. not defined in advance by the educational authorities. A condition for this freedom is maintaining a residential setting and following the applicable legislation.
Being responsible for seeking their own objectives and choosing their programmes means that folk high schools must continuously map the educational needs of the population they serve and plan their activities accordingly. The educational needs of the owner and/or background organization can also dictate the tasks a folk high school assumes. Target groups might also have specific educational needs.
A folk high school endeavors to develop the personality and to heighten the awareness and critical ability of an individual as well as develop his/her readiness to assume responsibility as a member of the society; offering alternatives in gaining control over one's life is also an important part of this goal. In a society characterized by powerful structural changes and internationalization there are problems related to unemployment, meeting people of other nationalities, marginalization and the environment; and education has an important role in alleviating them. Since folk high schools deal extensively with questions of ethical, religious, social, political, and other values, they also serve to reduce these kinds of tensions.
European surveys dealing with welfare and qualifications in the labour force have noted that in addition to vocational proficiency, qualifications required of workers in the future will, among others, include the following: international understanding, language skills, the ability to cooperate and to participate, flexibility, the ability to comprehend the bigger picture and the motivation to continuously learn and develop oneself. These are the very areas folk high schools work in.
Year-round activities
In accordance with folk high school traditions, teaching methods alternative to those dictated by the educational establishment are emphasized. The principle of providing an alternative also applies to the objectives and content of the education. However, a folk high school can also endeavor to complement or expand upon the education offered by the official educational establishment.
A central form of activity for folk high schools is the so-called long course. In practice, this period is divided into different study lines which on the average last from 30 to 36 workweeks. Teaching on the long courses tends to concentrate on social and humanistic subjects, art subjects and languages. There are about 200 different study lines offered by Finnish folk high schools.
There has also been a great increase in the number of short courses offered by folk high schools. The most common among these are courses lasting over five workdays of over the weekend. Most of the short courses are held in the summertime, so folk high schools generally have activities taking place year-round. The contents of the short courses are similar to the long courses.
Popular study lines include various ones focusing on communications and media ranging from radio and TV work to visual communications and photography; language, internationalism and travel lines; art lines including music, theatre, writing, visual arts and crafts; lines concentrating on social work, nursing or caring and education; as well as lines concentrating on environmental and social issues. A majority of folk high schools now also offer open university courses with more and more being offered each year. Most popular among subjects offered through open university teaching are pedagogic and social subjects.
The size of a folk high school can vary widely: the largest folk high schools have about 250 students on long courses each year, while the smallest ones have about 30-40.
Students
A folk high school is open for all who are over 16 years of age; there is no upper age limit. The long course is a study method for young adults. Nearly half of the students are between 19 and 24 years of age. The age distribution of the students varies between folk high schools, however. In some folk high schools, all students are under 21, and in others all are over 24. The long courses might, depending on what is offered by the school, also have middle-aged people or retirees among the students. The average age of the students on the short courses is usually higher than on the long courses.
About 8,000 students attend the long courses of folk high schools annually. The number of participants on short courses is over 80,000 adults annually. Three quarters of the students participating on long courses are female. In the social distribution of the students, the courses reflect the society at large. A majority of the students nowadays are workers with vocational skills and white collar workers. More and more, people with high school diplomas are participating in the long courses. Folk high schools also offer education for people with weak basic education as well as for disabled people and immigrants.
Many folk high schools have cooperating partners in other Nordic countries, the Baltic states and other European countries, the United States and in third world countries. More and more foreign students are also studying in Finnish folk high schools.
Financial support from the State
The law governing folk high schools guarantees them financial support from the state based on the number of study weeks being realized in a given year. Within the limits of the funds allocated for the purpose in the State budget, folk high schools can also get building subsidies and subsidies for loan interest. All in all, financial support from the state covers about 45% of the total annual expenses of a folk high school.
Students studying on the long courses can also get state support for their study expenses. In the recent years, however, the amount of support a student can get has been reduced.
The Finnish Folk High School Association
The Finnish Folk High School Association, which was founded in 1905, acts as a cooperating organization for all the folk high schools in the country. All folk high schools belong to it as organizational members, and about 70% of the employees at folk high schools are individual members in it. Central areas of cooperation include the politics and administration of education; external and internal information dissemination including the journal "Kansanopisto - Folkhögskolan"; development, education and assessment; and international issues.
A Nordic movement
The folk high school movement is characteristic of the Nordic countries. It originated in Denmark around the middle of the 19th century, with the first folk high school being founded there in 1844. The movement was based on the thoughts expressed by the poet, theologian and historian N.F.S. Grundtvig. From Denmark, the folk high school movement gradually spread into the other Nordic countries, and the first folk high school in Finland was founded in 1889.
Grundtvig's folk high school ideology was based on four basic starting points: the folk high school is a school for youth; it is also a school of the living word and of awakening awareness; and its nationalistic and down-to-earth character helps it to serve large sectors of the public. Grundtvig's idea was to narrow the educational and cultural gap existing between the elite and the common people of his time.
The ideological background of the folk high school movement extends to the ideological trends of the 19th century. Central among these was the early 19th century idea of the education of the people which was tied to the idea of the nation state. Efforts had already been made to develop popular education and to facilitate organizational activities, and liberal popular education was tied to these tendencies. Examples of these kinds of activities are, for instance, youth associations, farmer's associations and student's associations, the women's movement, temperance movement and the emerging labour movement.
The Nordic Folk High School Council
The Nordic Folk High School Council has a long tradition in cooperation: Norway, Sweden, Denmark and Finland are regular participants in its work and Åland, the Faroe Islands and Iceland are associate members. The council holds a few meetings annually and also organizes seminars. The aim is to exchange experiences and ideas, to promote cooperation within the Nordic countries as well as in wider circles and to develop further the folk high school ideology.
The Finnish Folk High School Association
Pohjoinen Rautatiekatu 15 B 12
00100 HELSINKI
tel +358-9-444 090
fax +358-9-445 619
www.opo.net
The Finnish Folk High School Association