The leading circulation daily Helsingin Sanomat devotes a two-page spread to looking at how the capital city’s multiculturalism plays out in the region’s schools. According to the paper, the city’s polyglot nature isn’t reflected evenly in all institutions: some schools have no students speaking languages other than Finnish or Swedish, while at the other end of the spectrum more than half of learners in other schools are native speakers of other languages.
The differences lie in the city’s demographics, explains the head of the city’s education department, Outi Salo.
“The school structure reflects the local social structure,” Salo added.
University of Helsinki researcher Venla Bernelius paints the situation in starker terms, saying that the school profiles reflect socio-economic differences in the city and a social structure she describes as "cast in stone".
“At the core of the matter are segregation in the city and housing prices. We see the prevalence of rental complexes in different districts compared to residential areas,” Bernelius explained.
According to HS the transition towards greater diversity among the student body has taken place at a rapid rate. Across the board the presence of languages other than Finnish or Swedish has increased by 20 percentage points since 2008. The phenomenon has been most evident in eastern and central parts of Helsinki.
In southern Helsinki on the other hand, the situation has remained more or less unchanged, in spite of the rapid growth in immigrant populations in the area.
Disabled forced to hire helpers
Hot off the press from southwest Finland the broadsheet Turun Sanomat exposes the plight of disabled persons whose only recourse to secure personal assistants is to take on the role of employers and hire the help they need -- potentially exposing themselves to compensation claims in firing cases that go awry.
Turun Sanomat writes that such cases have become common in many cities across the country, because municipal authorities do not exhaust all possible means to secure assistants for those who need them -- but mainly because it is the cheapest option. Finland’s disability services legislation guarantees disabled individuals the right to a personal assistant if they absolutely need one.
According to the Ministry of Social Affairs and Health 70 percent of social assistants are hired by disabled employers. In cities such as Turku and Vantaa, nearly all disabled persons with personal assistants have hired their helpers. In such cases the municipalities reimburse disabled employers for the statutory costs involved in taking an employee on board.
Stubb's bet on Grahn-Laasonen's election mojo
Meanwhile the tabloid daily Iltalehti’s print edition attempts to dig deeper behind the appointment of the National Coalition’s ministerial newbie Sanni Grahn-Laasonen to head the Environment Ministry vacated by Green League chair Ville Niinistö.
The paper reports that NCP chair and Prime Minister Alexander Stubb pitched the appointment of his 31-year-old former press attaché as checking all the right boxes in terms of gender, age, political savvy and her Häme roots.
Political analysts interviewed by the paper viewed the appointment of the inexperienced Grahn-Laasonen as a bold but also potentially dangerous gamble ahead of next year’s parliamentary election – Stubb is clearly betting on young blood to do well at the polls, analysts added.
One political observer noted that while Stubb appeared to see his political running mates as a sports team going into the vote, people were more likely interested in his ministers’ competence and ability to creditably manage their portfolios.
The analysts predicted that Grahn-Laasonen’s performance as Environment Minister will be closely followed by the media over the next seven months leading up to the election and that even the smallest misstep will come under intense public scrutiny.
