"Free 5 Million Finns from Mandatory Swedish"

"Free 5 Million Finns from Mandatory Swedish



Why this is important



In Finland there are around 5.4 million inhabitants, of which Finnish speakers make up over 91% and Swedish speakers over 5%. The majority of Finns want mandatory Swedish to be optional or voluntary in schools. The Finnish school children must have the right to study languages they themselves want to learn. But the Parliament of Finland and the government do not want to listen to the people and do not carry out the will of the majority. By making Swedish optional, school children have more time to customize their studies for a more productive and prosperous future.



The miserable language politics of Finland represent a large and very complicated mixture of oppression against the Finnish speaking majority, favoring treatment to the Swedish speaking minority and censoring the people's criticism of language policies by the Finnish media.



Making Swedish optional would be an important, but only the first step towards language fairness in Finland. There would still be many peculiarities to alter such as making the ostensible bilingualism into one official language (Finnish). Bilingualism is very expensive and its total costs have never been reported to the Finnish people.



The Swedish speaking minority has many special and unfair benefits. the most flagrant are the language quotas (based on Swedish) in universities. With the help of these language quotas, a half of every Swedish age group can study in university and get an academic degree compared to just one third of Finnish youngsters. Also the obligatory Swedish skill standards for public servants offer extra benefits for Swedish job seekers and the claims often pass professional competence for job requirements over Finnish speakers.



The Swedish minority has all their own services in Swedish and strictly separated from the Finnish ones. Removing mandatory Swedish in Finland is the first step towards a greater individual freedom in Finland.



Please sign this petition and give your support to the Finnish people against mandatory Swedish."





http://www.avaaz.org/en/petition/Free_5_Million_Finns_from_Mandatory_Sw…