Media in basic education

Media education is an important part of the Finnish teaching and education system. It is carried out in day-care centres, elementary schools and upper secondary education. Media education is not a subject but a point of emphasis in teaching and education. The training of people in the education and teaching field is constantly being developed because of the evolution of media and the need for new media skills. In the compulsory or upper secondary school curriculum ratified in 2004, media education has been integrated into one crosscurricular theme. Cross-curricular themes are points of emphasis in teaching and education that include content which is connected to many different subjects.

In the compulsory or upper secondary school curriculum ratified in 2004, media education has been integrated into one cross-curricular theme. Cross-curricular themes are points of emphasis in teaching and education that include content which is connected to many different subjects. They are unifying themes in teaching and education. The themes are also used to meet the contemporary educational challenges. When drafting school and municipality-specific curricula, these themes are to be included in common and elective subjects and they are to be visible in the operating culture of the school.

In basic education the cross-curricular subject media education is called communications and media skills. The other cross-curricular themes in basic education are called growing as a human being, cultural identity and internationality, committed citizenship and entrepreneurship, responsibility for the environment, well-being and a sustainable future, security and traffic and man and technology.

The media education content of the upper secondary school curriculum is part of a cross-curricular theme called communication and media competence. In addition to that theme, the cross-curricular themes common to all upper secondary schools are active citizenship and entrepreneurship, well-being and security, sustainable growth, cultural identity and cultural knowledge and technology and society.

The media education responsibility has been divided between all teachers, all subjects and as a part of the entire school culture. In practice, the implementing of media education is unevenly distributed in schools. The media skills of the teachers, the state of media equipment and the emphasis on media education vary around the country. The largest, most unified responsibility is shouldered by Finnish language teachers and visual arts teachers who have media education targets set in their respective subject curricula. Each teacher plans, either as part of a team or by themselves, the content of instruction for their students to support the educational targets. In order to facilitate the media education work of schools, various innovation projects have been implemented. For instance, the Elävää Kuvaa (Living Picture) –project based in Sodankylä strives to develop a model based on film and moving pictures where the different subjects are taken into consideration.  

To support the media education work, many free and commercial materials have been produced for different age groups, different classes and related to different subjects. The producers include the Finnish National Board of Education, numerous organisations and commercially operating parties. The media and their oversight organisations also produce materials for teachers. The Finnish Newspapers Association organizes ”the newspaper as part of teaching” activities around the year and the Finnish Periodical Publishers’ Association hosts ”Periodical Day”, the purpose of which is to increase the use of printed media as teaching materials.

The club activity in schools is being developed by national measures. The aim is to develop models for school club activity which would allow students to familiarize themselves with the media in clubs.