Background: Questions about the optimum age for young people to complete their compulsory education, and how this relates to issues of equity, are familiar topics of debate in many jurisdictions. The aim of educational equity has been fundamental in Finnish education, upheld through decades of reforms. A recent reform has extended compulsory…

The article examines policies intended to promote the basic education of Roma and Traveller minorities in Finland, Sweden, and Norway by analysing key national Roma and Traveller policy (n = 5) and education policy documents (n = 3). Analysis shows how the Finnish, Swedish, and Norwegian Roma policies translate the general policy aims of improving…

Both Sweden and Finland have education systems promoting equity and equality. However, recent societal and political changes linked to increased immigration have created new challenges in efforts to support linguistic diversity. This paper aims to explore how multilingualism is represented in the national compulsory school curricula in the two…

In Finland, teachers' have extensive autonomy, that is freedom from control by others over their professional actions in the classroom, and it is considered a strength of Finnish education. At the same time, national assessment of learning outcomes has been constructed to examine the learner's progress and achievements in relation to the criteria…

Public sector reform involving decentralisation and marketisation has led to "soft" indirect forms of governance aimed at steering more fragmented systems. Although based on information and guidance rather than hierarchy and legislation, these new methods of regulating through evaluation and quality control may be as powerful as more…