I think there are 60 mother tongues in Finnish schools in total.
I understand that it is a great thing. But is it too great a thing? What can we afford?
Teaching those 50 different mother tongues costs many times more in terms of money and human resources. According to a teacher acquaintance, there are native-language teachers even for individual students who might not have much of any other job description. It feels incredibly good, yes, but like an absolutely incomprehensible use of resources. For individuals, that’s a dream.
Is it our obligation to provide native-language teaching for every immigrant? It feels incomprehensible if that’s the case. There are quite a lot of languages in the world…
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The question inevitably arises: in which other countries in the world is there such a luxury service in schools? And is there really a right, in the name of equality, to receive instruction in one’s own language, no matter how marginal it may be (over a thousand Nigerian-Congolese languages alone are known, over 400 languages in India, etc.)? If not, then who decides which languages are OK?
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In Helsinki, approximately 4,500 students participate in native language instruction annually. The costs for this instruction are about 600,000 euros per year. In my opinion, it is a very reasonable sum. Of course, a condition for the instruction is a sufficient group size, meaning no teaching groups are established for a single student. After all, about 150 different mother tongues are spoken among Helsinki residents.
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Of course there’s no obligation, but it’s a clever way to prevent social exclusion, crime, and ghettoization, and to improve economic growth.
[quote=“JuhaR, post:3352, topic:44169”] In Helsinki, approximately 4,500 students participate in native language education annually.
The costs for this teaching are about 600,000 euros on an annual basis. In my opinion, it’s quite a reasonable sum.
[/quote]
This is a really important point.
The National Audit Office has calculated that one socially excluded young person costs society approximately 1.2 million euros. The expense arises from various service costs, benefits, and lost tax revenues.
So, if native language education for 4,500 students prevents one, I mean one young person from becoming socially excluded annually, it saves society 600,000 euros. A 0.02% success rate is enough for it to be economically profitable. Or actually, if it prevents one person from being excluded every other year, even that is enough for it not to be an actual expense.
It’s hard to imagine a better investment off the top of my head.
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As a layman, I would also offer the perspective that in the era of free money, sowing capital into unprofitable ventures was “limitless” — or let’s say even unhealthy investments and business models rear their heads and the risk of waste increases. But the point is — as the value of money rises — so does the level of scrutiny and sensitivity regarding a business’s actual ability to be profitable in the long run.
Or am I being naive.
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That’s certainly how it is, but if we want to grow the economy, there really aren’t many other options than to improve financing for consumers and businesses with low interest rates, or to improve sales, productivity, and the willingness to invest.
I’m mainly reflecting on the past, where Europe stagnated with zero interest rates for a decade. How would Europe fare now in the areas mentioned above if interest rates were, for example, 3%?
The US tends to fare better in slightly higher interest rate environments because their economic structure is different. If Europe wanted to get on the same level, we would need to start working longer hours and implement tax changes, especially for the workforce.
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Indeed, it would be of paramount importance to reform labor taxation sufficiently.
Why would anyone start working longer hours as things stand, when ~50% or more of the extra work done goes to the state in the form of taxes?
The best motivator is to offer the employee a sufficient carrot for the extra work they do. It is hard to understand why this isn’t understood by the government parties.
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That’s exactly what I was saying… And what I meant was that if they are putting in, say, 10–12 hour days in Asia and the US, it may be that competitiveness is in a different league compared to countries where people work 7.5 hours with high taxation… The motivation for longer days should come precisely from taxation—so that there is a chance to actually keep something for yourself as well…
Now, this is actually flipping the other way, meaning many higher earners want to work, say, a 4-day week because their take-home pay remains reasonable due to taxation, and the tax system motivates them to reduce working hours, not increase them.
Of course, Europe is a fairly broad concept in terms of tax rates and working conditions, but this kind of generalization can be applied to the Nordics and Western Europe…
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This mindset might apply to boomers, but millennials and Gen Z value meaningful work in a well-managed company more than just a salary. If employees are expected to put in longer hours, the work must be meaningful, and the corporate culture and management must be of high quality.
Likewise, companies must invest in their employees’ willingness to work. Money and work are (fortunately) no longer ends in themselves for today’s generations.
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We live in a democracy:
- When the majority of voters are poor, the wealthy are taxed more heavily.
- When the majority of voters receive their income directly as benefits or are on the public sector payroll, government spending will not decrease.
- When the majority of voters are elderly, pensions are not cut and healthcare is not skimped on; instead, cuts are targeted at education, students, young people, and children without the right to vote.
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This would be interesting from a productivity standpoint; 0% tax should be paid on overtime etc. It might even act as an incentive.
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The biggest reason for productivity stalling in Finland is surely that investments are made in bricks and mortar and bulk operations… There’s no value-added processing and no investment in growth..
They just pay out dividends and pay down corporate debt.. Perhaps it also says something that companies don’t want to invest here, but rather just run bulk operations..
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12-hour workdays boost productivity most effectively in assembly line work, which there isn’t much of in Finland anymore. The more the work is based on cognitive effort, the rarer the person who can actually do something truly productive for more than five hours a day. I’ve observed Asians’ long workdays from fairly close up, and I’d argue that productivity is more based on the fact that there are just so many people, and they are typically quite young, who can perhaps somehow manage excessively long days for a few years, after which they can be tossed out. Even in Asia, the demographic structure will soon be such that this won’t be possible for much longer.
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In my opinion, the biggest problem globally isn’t even labor productivity, but failed politics and greed. Labor productivity relative to workers’ wages used to follow a pattern where they went hand in hand. But between the 90s and 2000s, a change occurred where labor productivity has grown at 3.5 times the rate compared to what is paid to the worker…
In other words, corporate management and owners are pocketing this money… It certainly doesn’t motivate anyone to improve labor productivity because it only accumulates wealth for the top 1%. In my view, this is also prone to creating inequality, as well as dampening general economic activity and slowing down overall economic growth when the rest of the population can’t afford to spend…
But nowadays you often hear the saying… You pretend to pay a wage, and I’ll pretend to work.
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As said in a movie: “Greed is good”. In the right measure, greed is needed. In entrepreneurship and building a successful career path, greed also has its place. So, let’s get the incentives in order!
I would define harmful greed as demanding everything for free from the state – that is, from those who work and pay taxes. People are not willing to lift a finger themselves and then complain when benefits aren’t enough.
If you are of the opinion that company management and owners pocket all the dough, nothing prevents you from becoming an entrepreneur and/or owner yourself. Easy as pie.
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This is not a matter of opinion, but a fact that can be seen in the statistics. This is the direction of development, and it is not directly related to whether any particular company succeeds or not.
In itself, it’s contradictory that this is, as I understand it, a problem with high-technology products where margins are high. Finland has relatively few of these, and yet this motivation for work seems to be primarily a problem in Finland, not so much in countries where the most glaring examples of super-profitable companies are found. The better the business idea, the more easily profitability rises. In Finland, there is a segment of the population that is clearly concerned about the wealth growth of the top 1%. Many feel that change should start here, where income inequality is among the lowest in the world.
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It really feels unbelievable if it’s true. €12,000 per language including overheads. What do you get for that? A teacher’s salary for two months. The need is certainly spread across many places, so it seems like the kind of efficiency that should be aimed for in many other areas as well.
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Mother tongue is studied for one hour a week, and it doesn’t always take place in one’s own school, so there is indeed efficiency in the organization of the teaching.
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