Mandatory Swedish

Swedish is a mandatory school subject for Finnish-speaking pupils in the last four years of primary education (grades 6 to 9). This other domestic language is also mandatory in high schools, vocational schools, universities and vocational universities. Furthermore, students graduating in Finnish-language must demonstrate a certain level of proficiency in Swedish (often called "public servant's Swedish"; it works in the opposite way for Swedish-language graduates). Altogether, 89% of Finnish citizens are native Finnish speakers, whereas 5.3% of the population report Swedish as their mother tongue. It is currently possible for Finnish citizens to report a different mother tongue for themselves as many times as desired by submitting a form to the Population Register Center. According to the Finnish constitution and Language Act, both Finnish and Swedish are national languages, and employees of the national government and the bilingual municipal governments are required to be capable of serving citizens in both languages. The official term for both mandatory Swedish and Finnish is the other domestic language. The requirement to study Swedish is often referred to as pakkoruotsi, a somewhat charged term in Finnish meaning "mandatory Swedish" or "forced Swedish," and similarly, Finnish as a mandatory school subject for native Swedish speakers in Finland is sometimes referred to as "mandatory Finnish" or "enforced Finnish" (tvångsfinska). As Finnish is a much more prevalent language across the country, the inclusion of Swedish as a mandatory subject is especially a controversial topic. As an autonomous region, Åland is exempt from the bilingualism requirement and remains exclusively Swedish-speaking. In 2019, the Finnish Swedish People's Party almost succeeded in restoring compulsory Swedish in university entrance exams. In the same year, it proposed lowering the level of Finnish required for Swedish-speaking civil servants and organizing a campaign in other Nordic countries to get students to study in Swedish-speaking...