A young person studying Swedish. A reform outlined by the Finnish government is set to introduce arts, music and physical education to the matriculation examination, the national school-leaving exam in Finland. (Emmi Korhonen – Lehtikuva)
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THE GOVERNMENT of Prime Minister Petteri Orpo (NCP) is moving forward with its plan to introduce arts, music and physical education to the matriculation examination, the national school-leaving exam in Finland.
YLE on Sunday reported that arts and physical education could become one of the five compulsory subjects in the examination.
Reforming the examination in regards to arts and physical education is an objective laid out in the government programme. Government officials have worked on the necessary legislative amendments for roughly a year, with a view to presenting them to parliament as part of a broader legislative package in October.
The objective of the reform is to increase the importance of arts and physical education in general upper-secondary education and highlight skills in the subjects in student selection for further education. It would represent a major change by essentially expanding the matriculation exam to correspond with the entire breadth of the national curriculum for general upper-secondary education.
“Students would have a much greater opportunity to demonstrate their skills in the matriculation exam,” Petri Lempinen, the director general for general upper-secondary and vocational education at the Ministry of Education and Culture, summarised to YLE.
Currently, students can demonstrate their skills in arts and physical education with a special diploma, but the diploma has been fairly insignificant for further education, for example. The diploma would thus be scrapped as part of the reform.
The government has set its sights on implementing the reform such that it would come into effect for students entering general upper-secondary education in the autumn of 2027, with the first matriculation exams with arts, music and physical education occurring in 2029.
“I believe this’d be a good thing for students,” said Lempinen.
Mikko Hartikainen, an education counsellor at the Finnish National Agency for Education (OPH), revealed to the public broadcasting company that the reform proposal has been received with delight particularly by teachers who have expressed their concern about the diminishing significance of arts relative to other subjects.
“Teachers of arts and skills subjects have shown their interest and enthusiasm about this. It shows that the reform has clearly been a long time coming.”
He estimated that the introduction of arts and physical education to the matriculation exam would also both offer an opportunity to develop general upper-secondary instruction and generate interest in such subjects.
According to YLE, a key question associated with the reform is how can one demonstrate and measure skills in arts and physical education. The approach presently under consideration would enable students to demonstrate their skills in the new subjects prior to the digital matriculation exam.
“It’d be the kind of longer-term demonstration of skills that’s more appropriate for arts, music and physical education,” said Lempinen.
Aleksi Teivainen – HT
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Source: www.helsinkitimes.fi
