How Finland supports Sámi and indigenous education
Finland recognises the Sámi as an indigenous people with a right to education in their own language. In Lapland, a small number of schools teach in North Sámi, Inari Sámi or Skolt Sámi, backed by targeted government funding.
- Finland recognises the Sámi as an indigenous people and supports their right to receive education in their own language.
- Pupils in the Sámi homeland area can study in North Sámi, Inari Sámi or Skolt Sámi depending on their family background.
- Government grants for Sámi-language support totalled EUR 120,000 in 2025.
- A 2025 to 2028 agreement gives the University of Eastern Finland a national mandate to research and help revitalise Sámi languages.
- SAKK, a vocational institution in Inari, teaches Sámi handicrafts, reindeer herding and Sámi languages alongside its other programmes.
Why language rights matter from the earliest grades
North Sámi, Inari Sámi and Skolt Sámi are all spoken by very small populations, and Inari Sámi and Skolt Sámi in particular are considered severely endangered. A language not taught to children from an early age can lose an entire generation of speakers within a few decades, which is why Finland's support for Sámi-medium education starts in the earliest school years rather than arriving later as an elective subject.
What Sámi-medium schooling looks like
Pupils in the Sámi homeland area, in Finnish Lapland, can be taught in North Sámi, Inari Sámi or Skolt Sámi depending on their family background, while still following Finland's national core curriculum in subjects such as mathematics and science. Because the number of pupils in any one Sámi language is small, many of these schools rely on multigrade or combined classrooms, and on a limited pool of teachers trained to teach in these languages.
Funding and institutions behind the model
Government grants supporting Sámi-language teaching totalled EUR 120,000 in 2025, and a 2025 to 2028 agreement gives the University of Eastern Finland a national mandate to research and help revitalise Sámi languages. In Inari, the vocational institution SAKK teaches Sámi handicrafts, reindeer herding and Sámi languages alongside its other vocational programmes, linking language preservation to practical livelihoods as well as classroom study.
What this shows schools outside Finland
Most schools considering Finnish pedagogy will never teach Sámi, but the underlying approach, funding mother-tongue or heritage-language instruction as an addition to the national curriculum rather than a replacement for it, is directly relevant wherever a school serves multilingual learners. It is a working example of how a small-population language can be kept alive inside a mainstream, standards-based school system.
Frequently asked questions
How many Sámi languages are taught in Finnish schools?
Three: North Sámi, Inari Sámi and Skolt Sámi, chosen according to a pupil's background, mainly within the Sámi homeland area in Finnish Lapland.
Is this only relevant to schools in Lapland?
Directly, yes, but the underlying approach, funding mother-tongue instruction alongside the national curriculum rather than instead of it, is a model schools anywhere can learn from when supporting minority-language pupils.
Does Sámi education follow the same national curriculum as the rest of Finland?
Yes. Sámi-medium schools and language programmes still follow Finland's national core curriculum; the difference is the language of instruction and additional cultural content, not a separate curriculum.
Related reading
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