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everybody. Not that we would have continued with the older, a leadership structure,
but it has to be. So, the mentality was there and it started developing little by little.
One of the important cornerstones was exactly 70 years ago. A few days ago was
70 year anniversary, when free school meal was introduced to Finnish schools. And
this was an important factor in making sure that those poorer families have an
incentive then, to send children to school. It was a big issue to have one nutritious
meal every day. That was one of those steps.
The major reform was introduced in the 1970s. It’s called the Comprehensive
School System. The philosophy and the heart of our system is that it’s built on high
quality education for all, for everybody, so that none of that issues like wealth,
background of the parents, income of the parents, or the place of residence, or
anything like this, it should not have any impact on what kind of education you get.
So, it has to be equal for all. Practically all schools are public schools. We have some
private schools like for instance, French or so. But practically all schools are public.
And I think that it tells a lot when we started to implement this, the new school
system. It didn’t start from the most prosperous parts of the county like in the capital
and its surroundings. It started in the Northern Finland and the Eastern Finland which
rather poorer regions. So, they wanted to start there and bring little by little. It took
a few years to implement in the whole country. Really, the philosophy was there that
no one should be left behind, which is of the key philosophy of the SDGs, of the
Sustainable Development Goals. So, leave nobody behind and that the right to also
extra support like if you have difficulties with math or with languages or so, that you
get free support for that. It’s not only the children of the rich family can afford
tutoring. No, it’s everybody has the right and also everything is basically free from
primary school to universities. There’s no school fees, and school meals, school
materials most of the time I think they have introduced some in the higher class
nowadays by…
This comprehensive school, I think that’s the most important element ensuring
that everybody when they enter working life that they have the same possibility
because of the school. And I think this is something that we have to work so hard
to keep it, and try to prevent the gaps getting any bigger. So, this is briefly part
about our education system. Perhaps in the discussion also I could go, if you’re
interested, I could go in some other elements in the education system, but this rather
basic when it comes to equality.
Then if I may turn to gender equality issues. There are also… sorry I can’t
help, but I have to brag a little bit again because of that Finland was the first
country in the world to have female parliamentarians. That was in the parliament that
started in 1907, and we had quite a number of 12 or 14 women in that parliament,
12 yeah, 12 in that parliament already. In the seminar that we were referring to you
on Tuesday. One of the issues we were looking into very much was the question,
why is it so important to have gender equality? It’s a fundamental human right, major ª£¸²£ª±¡¡²¥¸h¡¢h¢µÈ
human right instrument, but we also wanted to look at more benefits side. It’s been
