Savings | The ministry was surprised by the sudden need for money for educational materials for children with intellectual disabilities

Ministry of Education and Culture (OKM) is in the process of finding replacement funding for the production of plain-language learning materials used by children with intellectual disabilities and other children who need a lot of support.

However, funding will probably decrease from previous years.

According to the developmental disability association, the Oppimaterialikeskus Opike, which operates under it, will completely lose its Stea funding under the Ministry of Social Affairs and Health from the beginning of 2025.

According to Stea’s assessment, supporting an activity like the learning material center is not within Stea’s purview, but funding should be sought elsewhere.

Now it seems that the other body is the Ministry of Education and Culture.

“Yes, we will find something, that goes without saying. It has been the minister’s will all along”, says the Minister of Education By Anders Adlercreutz (r) the Secretary of State Mikaela Nylander for HS.

All right however, it is not yet known at what level the Opike center’s funding will be next year.

According to its database, Stea has supported the center this year and last year with 315,000 euros per year. According to Nylander, the amount has been quite large.

“We don’t have such sums anywhere. The standard level for educational materials in Swedish, i.e. for all operators, has been approximately 80,000 [euroa vuodessa]. We are talking about completely different levels than what Stea has been able to give,” says Nylander.

There is to be consideredthat during this government term, significant additional money has been given to the production of educational materials in Swedish.

For this government term, 700,000 euros were added to the grants intended for the production of Swedish-language learning material that is not widely circulated.

In addition, the government decided in the budget rush of the fall on additional funds of 150,000 euros for the production of learning material for Finnish-Swedish sign language. The decision in question was made when Adlercreutz was already Minister of Education.

In total, 930,000 euros have been reserved for the production of learning materials in Swedish in next year’s budget.

The subsidies for the production of learning materials in the Sami language have also been increased to 800,000 euros from the previous 500,000 euros in this term of government. However, according to Nylander, it is about the former minister of education Anna-Maja Henriksson’s (r) of an extraordinary addition made to this reign.

It is true that even in 2023, only 80,000 euros had been set aside for the production of educational material in Swedish, which has little circulation.

According to Nylander, the problem when talking about the financing of the Opike Center is precisely that the funding levels for learning materials are normally quite low.

“It is really difficult to see that we would be able to find more than 300,000 euros, because we simply do not have such funds anywhere.”

Any money for the Opike center would also be earmarked, i.e. earmarked directly for it. Subsidies for Swedish and Sámi language materials are open, meaning that all operators in the field can apply for them from the Board of Education.

Second the problem is the urgency of the matter.

Nylander reminds that the learning material center has staff, and funding should not be cut off at the turn of the year. New funding should be available in the supplementary budget already this year. So the money should be found quite soon.

According to Nylander, the sudden need for funding came as a surprise to the ministry, and influencing the issue would have been easier if it could have been done during the budget rush at the beginning of September. Now the negotiations started at the beginning of this week.

According to him, even in the spring, Stea’s policy was that the aid to the educational material center would be stopped when replacement funding was found.

“When there were demands for additional savings from the government, Stea announced that the support would end at the beginning of next year. No one knew about it.”

Stea’s appropriations will decrease next year by almost 80 million euros.

Developmental Disabilities Association According to Oppimaterialikeskus Opike, it is the only organization in Finland that produces educational materials in plain Finnish for children with developmental disabilities and other children who need a lot of support.

According to the union, the materials are “vital” to guarantee equal learning.

“If the production of new learning materials for special groups is stopped, the goal of the Compulsory Education Act will not be realized. Pedagogically tailored learning material to the needs of students who need special support is a significant issue of equality,” says the Executive Director of the Finnish Association for Developmental Disorders Susanna Hintsala in the organization’s bulletin.

According to the association, the learning materials development process is long and demanding. The production of materials is commercially unprofitable due to the small print volumes.

Hintsala tells HS that the center has already had to suspend the lines used in the production of materials due to the uncertainty of the future of funding.

According to the Developmental Disability Association, funding for Lärum, which produces learning materials in Swedish for special groups, is similarly running out.

Lärum will receive a subsidy of around 110,000 euros this year.