The Swedish government wants NATO and total national defense in the school curriculum. In Finnish schools, NATO and national defense are included in the teaching of social studies and history.
Swedes schoolchildren should learn about Sweden's role in NATO, says the country's government in its publication on Thursday in the bulletin.
“It is more important than ever that schools give children information that allows them to question the disinformation to which they are increasingly exposed,” says the Minister of Education Lotta Edholm For Helsingin Sanomat.
According to the release, teaching about Sweden's role in the military alliance is included in the social studies subject for high school students. In addition, the government says that teaching will be increased on overall national defense, international law and foreign and security policy.
Swedish head of the department of the upper secondary school curriculum unit of the Finnish Education Agency Jonas Vigin according to, teaching related to NATO and total national defense has already existed in Swedish high schools in the past. However, the official marking has been missing from the subject curriculum.
“Now NATO and Total National Defense are added as compulsory subjects to the curriculum of the social studies subject in upper secondary schools,” says Vig.
According to Edholm, the government is considering whether teaching about total national defense and NATO should also be included in the basic education of primary and secondary schools.
In addition the country's Ministry of Education is conducting a study with the purpose of renewing and supplementing the rules regarding the school system and specifying the role of schools in case of peace, danger of war or exceptional events during wartime.
Edholm justifies the reforms with a change in the general security situation.
“Several statutes and regulations concerning the role of schools in a crisis situation, when war threatens or when war occurs, are not fully adapted to the way the school system is currently organized,” the Minister of Education says in the press release.
For example, private schools and preschools are not covered by the current strategy, according to the Minister of Education.
in Finland foreign and security policy issues are discussed in the social studies subject in basic education from the ninth grade.
In the third study period of high school social studies, about a third of the teaching is related to overall safety, says the teaching advisor for history and social subjects Nina Penttinen From the Board of Education.
“If you look at textbooks, there have been issues related to NATO for years. I assume that the publishers have now updated the NATO-related material to reflect NATO membership,” Penttinen says.
NATO is also discussed in Finnish high schools as part of history teaching.
According to Penttinen, goal-oriented curricula in Finland are not updated with individual content changes such as NATO membership.
“Highly trained teachers know how to deal with them as part of the goals and contents of the teaching anyway,” says Penttinen.
According to him, for example, critical media literacy, which is significant in terms of overall safety, has been emphasized in many subjects as part of broad-based learning.
According to Penttinen, the school's task is above all to create a safe environment to deal with difficult and complex topics and to provide tools for young people to cope in a threatening, uncertain and changing world.
Correction 5.4. 11:55 a.m.: Lotta Edholm is the Minister of Education, not the Minister of Education, as was wrongly stated in the article.
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