School Leadership and Principal Training in Finland

In Finland, the person leading a K-5 school has almost always taught in one first. This page looks at how a rehtori is trained, how much autonomy their school carries, and why that culture of trust helps keep good teachers in the profession.

From classroom to corridor: how a rehtori is trained

In Finland, becoming a primary school principal is not a separate career track. It is the next stage for an experienced classroom teacher. Before stepping into leadership, candidates typically spend years teaching in a peruskoulu classroom, building the pedagogical credibility that Finnish staffrooms expect of anyone giving direction on teaching and learning.

To formally qualify, a rehtori needs a master's degree, a valid teaching qualification for the level they will lead, sufficient teaching experience, and further studies in educational administration and leadership, commonly delivered through university continuing education and worth roughly 25 ECTS credits. This sits on top of the initial teacher education already covered in how Finnish teachers are trained, rather than replacing it.

Many principals keep teaching a few lessons a week even once they are leading a school. That choice is deliberate. It keeps the rehtori inside the same daily rhythms as their staff, so leadership decisions are grounded in what is actually happening in classrooms rather than delivered from a distance.

Autonomy at the school gate: curriculum, budget and staffing

The Finnish system is deliberately light on central control. The national core curriculum sets broad goals, subject hours and assessment principles, but it is written to be interpreted locally. Municipalities, as the local education providers, work with each school's principal and teaching staff to turn that framework into a local curriculum that fits the pupils, the community and the school's own priorities.

That autonomy extends well past curriculum wording. A principal typically prepares and proposes the school's budget to the municipality, has real input into staffing and recruitment, and works with teaching teams to decide how the school day, subject groupings and teaching methods are organised. For a K-5 school this might mean leaning into play-based approaches in the early years, adjusting how class groupings are formed, or reshaping a term around a phenomenon-based project, all without waiting for approval from a national ministry.

• How the national curriculum is implemented in day-to-day lessons
• Budget proposals covering staffing, materials and resources
• Recruitment and staffing decisions within the school
• Choice of teaching methods, materials and timetable structure

Leading through trust: a distributed and instructional culture

Since the 1980s, Finnish research and practice have described this style as pedagogical leadership: influence exercised through shared goals, professional relationships and school culture rather than through directives. Decision making is spread across the staff, with subject teams, working groups and pedagogical teams routinely shaping how the school develops, not just the principal's office.

Trust underpins all of it. Formal inspections are rare and central government does not audit day-to-day teaching. Instead, principals are trusted to lead their staff and staff are trusted to teach well, an extension of the same professional confidence described in Finnish teachers' status and standing. Teachers are treated less as employees carrying out instructions and more as colleagues with their own professional judgement, and a good rehtori's job is to coordinate that judgement rather than override it.

Why it keeps teachers in the profession and lets schools innovate

This leadership culture matters beyond the school gates. Teachers who are trusted with real say over how they teach, and who see their principal as a former peer rather than a distant manager, tend to report higher job satisfaction, which is one of the threads behind Finland's strong teacher retention. Local autonomy also means that innovation does not have to wait for a nationwide policy change: a single K-5 school can pilot a new approach to reading instruction or rethink how it supports pupils who need extra support, learn from the results, and adjust, all inside one school year.

For schools outside Finland looking to adopt this model, the leadership layer is often the hardest part to translate, since it depends on trust built over years rather than a single training course. That is one reason OPPI treats leadership development as part of the same process as bringing Finnish pedagogy into a school, working with a school's leadership team alongside its teachers rather than training either group in isolation.

A rehtori's authority rests less on their title and more on having earned trust as a teacher first.

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