Majority comprehensive school students study English

English was the most commonly studied foreign language on grades 1 to 6 of comprehensive school in the autumn semester of 2016, according to Statistics Finland.

Seventy-one per cent of the pupils attending grades 1 to 6 studied English either as a compulsory or optional foreign language. The percentages of pupils studying other foreign languages remained at 5 per cent or below.

Nearly all pupils attending grades 7 to 9 studied both English and Swedish or Finnish either as mother tongue, or as a compulsory, optional or elective foreign language.

German was studied by 11 per cent and French by 6 per cent of the pupils attending grades 7 to 9, mainly as an optional or elective foreign language.

A total of 363,450 pupils attended grades 1 to 6 and 186,108 of the pupils were boys and 177,342 were girls.

A total of 175,330 pupils attended grades 7 to 9 of which 89,634 pupils were boys and 85,696 were girls.