Development of Finland’s language reserve – making multilingualism Finland’s strength

Language reserve refers to the language proficiency in its entirety at national level: citizens’ language skills, language proficiency produced by the formal education system and the planning of language instruction.

The report on the current state and development needs of Finland’s language reserve proposes an array of measures that should be taken to develop Finnish people’s language skills so that they would meet the future needs.

The report covers the entire Finnish education system. The report will serve as a basis for drawing up a national language strategy.

A steering group appointed by the Ministry of Education and Culture supported the preparation of the report. The steering group also acted as the steering group for the Government key project examining the possibilities to start language learning earlier. In the course of the work, seminars and workshops around the theme were arranged, and Professor Pyykkö and the steering group consulted a large number of experts in the field of language instruction.

Multilingualism as a strength. Procedural recommendations for developing Finland’s national language reserve

Multilingualism into a strength. A report of the status and levels of language competences in Finland. Publications of the Ministry of Education and Culture, Finland 2017:51 (in Finnish, description sheet in English)