Inclusion—the idea of every pupil in Finland having access to mainstream education, regardless of their learning needs—has become a hot topic recently. The All Points North podcast talked to fellow Yle journalist Satu Miettinen to learn more about the critical voices.
"The main problem is that there are no accurate guidelines on how to implement inclusion. And at the same time, there are 130,000 children who are in need of some kind of support and the amount of these pupils has risen dramatically in the past 30 years," Miettinen told APN.
Listen to the episode via this embedded player, on Yle Areena, Apple or via Spotify.
Blame game
Following a summer of racism and far-right scandals that beset her party as well as the newly-formed coalition government, Finns Party leader Riikka Purra told a party congress in Tampere this week that the media had launched an "unprecedented witch hunt" against the party.
"I was astonished at the harsh tone [of Purra's speech]," media scholar Anu Koivunen told APN. "There was no moderation or trying to find a way out of this conflict but rather it was intensification."
Litter-free hiking
Wildlife agency Metsähallitus is planning to remove rubbish bins from Finland's national parks in an attempt to further encourage a trend known as litter-free hiking.
"During the Covid restrictions, there was a boom of people visiting national parks and there were several who did not seem to know how to behave or how to act, and this caused some problems with littering," Metsähallitus Outdoor Recreation and Visitor Manager Pekka Sulkava told the show.
Join the conversation!
This week's show was presented by Zena Iovino and Ronan Browne. The sound engineer was Joonatan Kotila.
If you have any questions or would like to share your thoughts, contact us via WhatsApp on +358 44 421 0909, on our Facebook or Twitter accounts, or at yle.news@yle.fi and allpointsnorth@yle.fi.
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