The education minister, Krista Kiuru, has spoken out in defence of a bill to raise the minimum school-leaving age to 17, against critics from within the coalition government who say the costing calculations behind the proposals are ”not watertight”.
The proposal, to force young people to stay in education for an extra year, is a cornerstone of Kiuru’s Social Democratic Party's policy, who claim the move will save thousands of young people from marginalisation.
At the start of June a consultation on the Education Ministry’s bill drew around 40 expressions of criticism from MPs, around half of whom questioned whether the policy’s 15 million euro price tag was sufficient to fund the change.
The National Coalition Party said the calculations set out in the policy document were ”not watertight”, and called on officals at the Education Ministry to go through them again.
The prime minister and leader of the NCP, Alexander Stubb, has previously said that he wants to re-examine the decision to raise the school leaving age to 17, despite it having been agreed on by the cabinet under the premiership of Jyrki Katainen.
In one of the prime minister’s first clashes with the then newly appointed finance minister and head of the Social Democrats, Antti Rinne insisted in June that his party would not give ground over the policy.
Funding shortfall
Meanwhile the Green Party called for the Government Institute for Economic Research to perform their own independent calculations on the cost of the measures.
The Greens argued that, should 15 million euros not prove enough to cover the costs of the change, local municipalities would be forced to make up the shortfall from their education budgets. This could lead to larger class sizes or the cutting of specialist studies from school curricula, meaning secondary level pupils would have to start paying for their own learning materials, the Green Party warned.
They also claimed that the measure could end up effectively directing funding away from support to those very marginalised young people that the government is trying to help.
"The Social Democrats should ask themselves if it is very socially democratic to put forward a bill which leads to the situation of vulnerable pupils deteriorating further," the Greens’ Outi Alanko-Kahiluoto said.
Reducing marginalisation
Education Minister Krista Kiuru defended the bill, however, insisting that she stands by the calculations of her ministry officials, and saying that the measure will save money by reducing youth social exclusion.
"About 15 percent of our young people make up 40 percent of the unemployment in this country, and that is a big social problem in my opinion. It currently costs us a huge amount, and we must make sure that every young person is able to get themselves an education which will equip them to enter the employment market," Kiuru said.
"The employment rate among young people who have completed further education is on average 70 percent. The savings alone [of making further education compulsary] would be considerable, to the extent that one could characterise this policy as a savings measure," she said.
Lack of understanding
Kiuru accused the bill's opponents of failing to identify any specific error within the ministry's workings, and said that a lack of understanding was behind most of the criticisms.
She also rejected calls for an outside body to verify the calculations, insisting that the Advisory Board on Municipal Economy and Administration will meet to consider the issue in August.
Final decisions on the bill should be made some time this month, Kiuru said.
