Column | Behind the successful schoolboy is a settled mother

When Mustafa Muuse had won the hearts of the audience in the Finland-Sweden international match, in HS his story was told. A smoking mother plays a central role in it.

Muuse is the child of Somali parents. He had to experience neo-Nazi harassment, bullying and racism.

However, the mother wanted the children to integrate. He studied healthcare and worked as a Somali language interpreter. As a single parent, he moved with his family to live in a quieter area, even though he had to pay more expensive rent and be separated from the Somali community.

Mother kept strict home times. He refused to buy a game console. To combat boredom, Muuse picked up a book and learned to love reading. Then the mother forced the bookworm to play sports.

Now Muuse is the Finnish champion of 5,000 meters and a student of four board games.

Bridge announced in the week From the Pisa study it turned out that 60 percent of first-generation immigrants read so poorly that, according to the OECD’s definition, they do not have sufficient knowledge and skills for further studies and working life.

The scores of pupils with an immigrant background in both mathematics and reading are lower than the average in OECD countries. Something goes wrong here on average.

You have to invest in children’s learning in many ways, but when children have wanted a better future, a lot has often been achieved by influencing mothers.

Studies have shown that mothers’ education and status in working life also affects their children’s academic success.

In immigrant families, especially the employment of mothers from outside the EU is strongly reflected in the employment of their daughters born in Europe.

Immigrant women employment in Finland is the weakest in the Nordic countries and below the European average. One key reason, according to several reports, is the support for home care, which directly encourages people to stay away from working life.

Immigrants and especially refugee mothers take care of children at home longer than other women. At home, you don’t learn to speak the language or to function in a new society.

You can get support for home care if the youngest in the family is under three years old. Older siblings can get a sibling upgrade if they are not taken to treatment either.

This encourages children to be kept at home until compulsory schooling begins. It’s a bad trap for children of immigrants who can’t go to kindergarten to learn Finnish.

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Home care support is a bad trap.

Most parents clearly understand this, as immigrants use sibling support less than native Finns. For native speakers other than Finnish or Swedish About 90 percent of 3–5-year-olds are involved in early childhood education. It is the same share as Finnish-speaking children.

The rest of those cared for at home may suffer doubly: they don’t get to learn the language and culture in early childhood education, and their mothers don’t settle down.

Last washed by the Ministry of Labor and Economy during the government period research team presented the abolition of the entire home care subsidy in order to improve employment. In order to combat poverty, the group proposed an income-related child benefit supplement instead of home care support.

In the current one in the government program it is planned that home care support would be withdrawn only from recent immigrants.

It could be better for everyone if the support were reduced equally. The current support for home care displaces native Finnish women who are already in a weak labor market position, who easily stay at home with their children for long periods of time, from working life.

The weakest children of the native population would also badly need early childhood education provided by kindergartens.

On the other hand now the way is open to top sports and university.

Even less is enough for a person. It is important that educators expect all children to do well in school and in life. Then the children dare to expect it from themselves as well.

The author is HS’s science editor.