The Summer High School Association

The Summer High School Association (Kesälukioseura ry) was founded in 1965 to promote the voluntary study and leisure activities of young people, and to organize experimental, and research activities relating to studying and teaching. The Association plans and implements summer high schools and organizes courses in Finnish language and culture for Finnish expatriate children and youngsters as well as courses for refugee groups living in Finland, in their own language and culture. Moreover the Association engages in publishing.

The summer high schools organize courses both in Finland and abroad, and they are targeted to students who are over 15 years of age. They offer theoretical, practical and arts courses and also statutory and optional courses of the high school curriculum. Open to foreign students, the summer high schools also invite foreign guest teachers and lecturers.

The courses in the Finnish language and culture are designed for expatriate Finnish children and young people between 7 and 20 years of age. A separate course is organized for each age group, corresponding to the respective school level. The Finnish language is taught at various competence levels, and the participants learn to know about many different aspects of the Finnish society, culture, way of life, history and present.

The courses in mother tongue and culture of origin are organized for the refugee children and young people between 7 and 14 years of age. The objective of the courses is to help the refugees maintain their skills in their mother tongue and culture and to strengthen their cultural identity. The native speaker teachers of the respective course languages are chosen among the refugee groups.

The Summer High School Association is a nationwide organization, which has various pupil, student, youth, teacher and educational organizations as its members. The Association is a private-law, non-political and non-profit-making organization. The activities are mainly financed through the funds received from the Finnish Ministry of Education and Culture and the Raha-automaattiyhdistys (Finnish Slot Machine Association).