Homeschooling in Finland has tripled in seven years, with the latest figure cited by Yle showing 945 children, around 0.18% of Finnish school pupils, being educated outside the school system. The numbers remain small, but the rise is putting increasing pressure on a system in which municipalities are responsible for supervision while national law leaves much of the practical oversight to local authorities.
The debate gained further political weight on 5 October, when Education Minister Anders Adlercreutz said authorities should be able to end homeschooling in certain cases if a child’s compulsory education is not being fulfilled. He stopped short, however, of supporting a Swedish-style requirement for children to attend school in person. Yle reported on Adlercreutz’s position.
A small phenomenon growing quickly
A Yle MOT investigation into homeschooling found that the number of homeschooled children has tripled over seven years. Home education was recorded in 117 Finnish municipalities this year, although in most of them only a handful of children were involved.
The reasons families choose homeschooling vary considerably. They include children’s wellbeing, neuropsychiatric support needs, bullying, problems with school buildings, competitive sport and longer periods of travel. Some families also cite religious, ideological or other value-based reasons.
MOT contacted 22 teachers responsible for supervising homeschooled children. Thirteen described cooperation with families as good, while others raised concerns about children’s academic progress, social isolation or difficulties in assessing whether submitted work had actually been completed by the child.
Ten of the teachers said authorities should have the power to stop homeschooling in problematic cases, while four supported introducing compulsory school attendance. The group interviewed by MOT is not a representative sample of all Finnish municipalities, so its responses cannot be treated as a nationwide survey of homeschooling families or supervisors.
How homeschooling in Finland is monitored
Finland has compulsory education, but children are not generally required to attend a school building. According to the Finnish National Agency for Education’s guidance on homeschooling, parents do not need permission to begin educating a child at home. A notification to the municipality is sufficient, after which responsibility for ensuring that the child acquires the knowledge and skills required by the national curriculum rests with the guardian.
Under Finland’s Basic Education Act, the municipality where the child lives must monitor their progress if they are not participating in regular basic education.
The law does not, however, specify exactly how this supervision should be organised or how frequently assessments must take place. Those arrangements are decided locally. The Finnish National Agency for Education says a common practice is to hold monitoring sessions once or twice a year, using methods such as discussions, portfolios, written or oral assignments and demonstrations of practical skills.
This local discretion is now one of the main points of debate. Children’s Ombudsman Elina Pekkarinen told Yle that differences between municipalities can undermine equal treatment and children’s educational rights. At the same time, she has opposed an outright ban, arguing that homeschooling can provide useful flexibility for some families and in particular circumstances.
Finland is considering stronger safeguards
Adlercreutz said Finland should establish clearer conditions for entering homeschooling and make supervision more consistent across municipalities. He also suggested that parents could be required to provide a plan explaining how they intend to organise their child’s education.
The minister said authorities should have an intermediate way to intervene when education is clearly inadequate, rather than relying mainly on measures such as criminal or child welfare reports. He also raised the possibility of clearer annual assessments of children’s progress. The Ministry of Education’s wider review of homeschooling is expected during October.
The controversy therefore does not concern only whether families should be free to educate children outside school. It also concerns how the state can ensure that every child receives an adequate education, regardless of where it takes place.
MOT reported individual cases involving serious neglect and concerns that homeschooling could make some children less visible to public authorities. Those cases are serious, but they cannot be generalised to Finnish homeschooling families as a whole. The same investigation found many supervisors reporting good cooperation with parents.
Denmark and Norway show similar growth
In Denmark, the number of homeschooled children also tripled from 2017, reaching 1,553 in June 2024, according to a survey by the Danish Ministry of Children and Education. The ministry said several municipalities were experiencing an increase in homeschooling.
Denmark, like Finland, has compulsory education rather than a general obligation to attend a particular school. Parents can educate their children themselves, but the municipality must supervise whether the education is equivalent to what is normally required in the Danish public school system. Danish authorities have more clearly defined procedures for cases in which that requirement is not met. The Danish Ministry of Children and Education explains the supervision system here.
Norway shows a similar, although smaller, increase. Official education statistics record 452 homeschooled pupils in 2025-26, compared with 179 in 2016-17. Their share of primary and lower-secondary pupils rose from 0.03% to 0.07% over the same period. Norway’s Directorate for Education and Training describes the increase in its latest school statistics.
A Nordic trend, but not a uniform one
The figures suggest that home education is becoming more common in several Nordic countries where legislation makes it possible. Finland and Denmark have both recorded roughly threefold increases, while Norway has seen numbers rise by more than two and a half times in less than a decade.
But it would be misleading to describe this as a uniform Nordic trend. Sweden follows a substantially different model, with compulsory school attendance and homeschooling allowed only in very limited circumstances.
The European picture is even harder to reduce to a single trend. A comparative Eurydice report on home education policies in Europe found that home education requested by families was possible in a majority of European education systems, usually with some form of monitoring. Regulations, authorisation requirements and assessment systems nevertheless differ sharply between countries.
The available figures therefore support a more limited conclusion: homeschooling is growing noticeably in Finland and in some neighbouring Nordic countries where it is legally accessible, but the evidence is not sufficient to establish a comparable Europe-wide rise.
For Finland, the next step will come soon. The Education Ministry’s review, expected during October, could determine whether the rapid growth of homeschooling leads to nationally standardised supervision and new powers for authorities to intervene when a child’s right to education is considered at risk.
