When the educational institution starts operating, the state will allocate money to the municipality for each student.
The director of the Finnish-Russian kindergarten "Mishka," Ekaterina Tyahkyapya, says that the school will open in the fall of 2027, provided that it receives a license from the State Council.
A fund will be established to create and manage the school, which will finance activities in the initial stage. According to Tyahkyapya, education will be free.
At the initial stage, the school will offer basic education in Finnish and Russian. Over the next five years, it is planned to expand the language palette so that instruction can also be partially conducted in Spanish, Chinese, and Arabic.
The CLIL method will be used in the school, where both the subject matter and the language are studied simultaneously.
"We do not want to position ourselves solely as a Finnish-Russian school. This is a language school where students will be able to study several foreign languages. We are concerned that fewer languages are being taught in an extended program in Turku," says Tyahkyapya.
The city has responded positively to the creation of the new school
The city authorities decided to close the Finnish-Russian language classes in the winter of 2024, despite loud protests. The association supporting Finnish-Russian classes filed a petition to rectify the decision and appealed it in the administrative court, but the complaints were dismissed. However, families did not give up and decided to open a completely new school.
Ekaterina Tyahkyapya reports that representatives of the city of Turku responded positively to the creation of the new school. According to her, the association does not intend to request funding from the city for the school project.
"When the school starts operating, the state will allocate money to the municipality for each student. These funds will be transferred to the private school.
It is planned that in the fall of 2027, about twenty students from grades 1-3 will study at the school, and two teachers will work there.
"I am sure that students will come from both fully Finnish-speaking and multilingual families. A child can attend the school even if they only know Finnish," says Tyahkyapya.
Obtaining a license is not easy
There are about 60 private schools operating in Finland.
Instruction in Russian is provided by the Finnish-Russian School of Helsinki and the Eastern Finland School, which operates in Lappeenranta, Imatra, and Joensuu.
The chairman of the Union of Private Schools, Jussi Sutin, warns that obtaining a license can be challenging. In recent years, few licenses have been issued.
"The union finds it difficult to assess whether there is a need for a specific school, but in general, we support new private school projects," he notes.
The creation of the language school was first reported by the newspaper Turun Sanomat.
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