TALIS 2024: Early childhood staff find their work meaningful, but lack of resources and staff shortages pose challenges
An OECD survey shows that Finnish early childhood education and care (ECEC) stands out for active cooperation with families. In Finland, staff communicate and organise events for families more often than in most other participating countries. Stress levels among ECEC and pre-primary staff and leaders are lower in Finland than elsewhere, but staff shortages are a major source of stress.
The views of staff and leaders emerge from the OECD Starting Strong Teaching and Learning International Survey (TALIS Starting Strong) 2024. Finland took part in the survey for the first time. The survey covered 15 countries and subnational entities. In Finland, 1,389 staff members and 204 leaders responded.
The survey gathered information on teaching and learning practices, professional development, job satisfaction and workplace climate, development of the ECEC environment, and work-related stress.
According to the results, staff and leaders in ECEC find their work meaningful and enjoy what they do. Staff consider their education and training diverse and report good collaboration with colleagues. They see developing children’s social skills as a key task and feel successful in creating a sense of safety for children.
Most staff and leaders are satisfied with their work, although job satisfaction is higher in Denmark and Sweden.
Fewer than one in five staff and fewer than half of leaders are satisfied with their pay. Both staff and leaders believe their work should be more valued in society.
Around half of staff and leaders experience high stress, mainly due to needing to accommodate children with special education needs and having extra duties caused by staff absences. Open responses also highlight resource shortages: the most common message sent to decision-makers concerns the need for smaller group sizes and more adults per group to keep workloads manageable and ensure adequate support for children.
- OECD TALIS 2024 full report
- OECD Participant Note on Finland’s results
- Summary of Finland's results in Finnish. A summary in Swedish will be published later.
How TALIS 2024 results are published
Finland participated in the main Teaching and Learning International Survey (TALIS) 2024, which focused on lower secondary school teachers and principals. The international results were published on 7 October 2025.
For the first time, Finland also took part in the TALIS Starting Strong module, which targets staff in early childhood education and pre-primary education, as well as leaders of early education centres and schools providing pre-primary education. Results of the TALIS Starting Strong were published on 2 December 2025.
The Ministry will publish the national reports on both lower secondary education and ECEC by January 2026.
TALIS results will be discussed at a national seminar, which will take place at 12.00–16.00 on 20 January 2026. More details of the seminar in the Ministry’s event calendar.
The OECD will later publish thematic reports, focusing on topics such as sustainable development and school leadership.
Inquiries:
- Kirsi Alila, Senior Ministerial Adviser, Ministry of Education and Culture, tel. +358 295 330 365
- Marjo Vesalainen, Senior Ministerial Adviser, Ministry of Education and Culture, tel. +358 295 330 352
- Matti Taajamo, Senior Researcher, University of Jyväskylä, tel. +358 40 805 4281
