Pisa results | OAJ’s Murto: The reason behind the Pisa collapse is a lack of resources

Education chairman of the trade association OAJ Katarina Murto characterizes the recent Pisa results published on Tuesday as a “collapse”.

The learning results of Finns have weakened in all measured subjects: mathematics, reading and natural sciences.

According to Murro, the problem is well recognized in OAJ’s field, i.e. among teachers.

“Teachers have been talking about the lack of resources for a long time, which can be seen in many ways in everyday work and is exhausting. In many places, the group sizes are too large and learning support is not implemented in practice as it should be,” he says to Helsingin Sanomat.

“There are also problems with student care. There are not enough psychologists and curators, and transferring student care services to welfare areas did not improve the situation.”

From the beginning of 2023, social and healthcare services moved from municipalities to new welfare areas. Education and training are still the responsibility of municipalities.

In summer started Petteri Orpon The (kok) government has promised in its program to reform the legislation on learning support.

Murto considers the reform important, but according to him, it is not enough.

“The basic financing of education should be strengthened in the long term, and not always looked at in the short term one election term at a time,” he says.

The municipalities’ state contributions are also a concern. After the Social Security reform, education and training are the most significant areas of responsibility of the municipalities, and the municipalities finance these services with taxes and state contributions.

However, in the years 2025–2027, municipalities are accumulating hundreds of millions of euros less state shares than expected. The reason is, among other things, the changes in the income structure, which the ministry could not foresee in its calculations.

The government should look for a permanent cut of around half a billion euros from other expenses if it wants to compensate municipalities for this without taking on new debt.

“Even if the government makes other investments, in the worst case, the development of the municipal economy can lead to significant savings in education, teaching and training. It is by no means the right direction,” says Murto.

“There is no way to raise the level of learning without investing in education throughout Finland, in many different ways and at different levels. We need smaller group sizes, small groups, special classes, investments in student care – this is a big whole.”