Finnish girls keen on visual arts, boys on games

Finnish girls are interested in visual arts, cooking, and hobbies involving animals while boys are interested in mopeds, games, parkour and football, according to the findings of the Pupil and Student Survey 2020.

A record number of 197,040 children and young people took part in the survey conducted by the Ministry of Education and Culture, said a government press release on Thursday.

The results showed that 55 per cent of all respondents would like to start a leisure activity or hobby. One in five lacks a meaningful leisure activity or hobby, and of these, more than 60 per cent said they would like to start a hobby.

Younger schoolchildren are interested in leisure activities and hobbies such as park hour, climbing, cooking, animal clubs, visual arts, snowboarding/skiing, and football.

Older schoolchildren are interested in gyms, snowboarding/skiing, cooking, bowling, shooting as a sport/archery, fixing mopeds and pool. If a club for fixing mopeds were to be set up in a school, older boys would probably take part in it.

Girls and boys prefer different leisure activities and hobbies. The wish list of girls includes riding, cooking, visual arts, animal clubs, dancing, climbing, and agility.

Top of the list for boys are parkour, designing games/coding, football, fixing mopeds, BMX/mountain biking, hunting and snowboarding/skiing.

Girls also expressed an interest in film clubs, handicrafts, fashion design, and photography; boys, instead, listed history clubs, architecture, media, video, and light art.

“…. Every single child should be given the opportunity for a hobby. It brings joy and allows children to experience a sense of achievement and learning. This is the aim of the Finnish model for leisure activities and hobbies. This survey is a great initial impetus for incorporating the type of hobbies children want into their school days,” said Minister of Science and Culture Annika Saarikko.