VISOS DIENOS MOKYKLOS IR ĮTRAUKIOJO UGDYMO SĄSAJOS: SUOMIJOS ATVEJIS
LINKAGES BETWEEN THE ALL-DAY SCHOOL AND INCLUSIVE EDUCATION: THE CASE OF FINLAND

Summary/Abstract: This article analyses the linkages between the all-day school and inclusive education in the context of the Finnish education system. The relevance of the study lies in the fact that contemporary educational research increasingly emphasises not only access to education, but also forms of school organisation that create conditions for pupils’ holistic development, social participation, and well-being. In this context, the all-day school is not understood merely as prolonged attendance at school after lessons, but as a broader organisational and educational arrangement combining teaching, care, support, meaningful leisure, physical activity, and community-based participation. The Finnish case is particularly significant because, although the term ‘all-day school’ is not officially used in Finland, several practical and policy-level arrangements correspond to the substance of this idea. The article starts from the assumption that the relationship between the all-day school and inclusive education becomes visible when the school day is understood not simply as a sequence of lessons, but as a broader pedagogical, social, and welfare-oriented structure. In Finland, this logic may be reconstructed through a number of interrelated arrangements. These include morning and afternoon activities for pupils, the legacy of the former national MUKAVA integrated school day experiment, the principles of the flexible school day, and the national Finnish hobby model. Together, these arrangements reveal that the extension of the school day in Finland is associated not merely with supervision, but with children’s well-being, equal opportunities, social integration, and meaningful engagement. The research problem is formulated in the following question: how are the arrangements related to the extended school day in the Finnish education system linked to the implementation of inclusive education? The object of the research is the relationship between the all-day school and inclusive education in the Finnish education system. The aim of the article is to reveal how this relationship is expressed in Finnish educational practice and in decisions taken at the municipal level. In order to achieve this aim, the article addresses three closely related tasks: first, to describe the expression of the all-day school idea in the Finnish education system; second, to discuss the principles of inclusive education and the peculiarities of their implementation in Finland; and third, to analyse how the linkages between these two phenomena become visible at the level of the Jyväskylä municipality and selected schools. The study is based on a qualitative methodological approach combining document analysis and case study. This methodological choice was determined by the intention not to measure quantitative indicators, but to reconstruct analytically how the linkages between the all-day school and inclusive education are articulated in legislation, policy documents, methodological texts, and local organisational practices. In this study, document analysis is understood as the systematic collection, selection, comparison, and interpretative examination of publicly available textual sources in order to identify the concepts, principles, operational logics, and practical solutions embedded in them. The empirical material consisted of several groups of sources. These included national legal acts defining the foundations of Finnish basic education, learning support, morning and afternoon activities, and pupil welfare; policy and methodological documents produced by the Ministry of Education and Culture and the Finnish National Agency for Education; scholarly publications addressing the MUKAVA experiment, the flexible school day, and inclusive education policy and practice in Finland; and municipal- and school-level documents. As a local case, the article analyses the experience of the Jyväskylä municipality in order to examine how national principles are translated into local arrangements and school practices. Such diversity of sources made it possible to cover the macro-level of educational policy and regulation, the meso-level of municipal organisation, and the micro-level of school practice. The analysis demonstrates that in Finland the idea of the all-day school is realised through a set of interconnected arrangements rather than through one formally established model. Morning and afternoon activities constitute one of the clearest practical expressions of this idea. Organised under municipal responsibility, these activities are typically intended for pupils in the first years of basic education and for pupils with special needs before and/or after lessons. Importantly, they are not limited to custodial care, but also include purposeful engagement, social interaction, and the provision of a safe environment. Another important dimension is the former MUKAVA integrated school day experiment, whose ideas have been transferred into more recent educational practices. The logic of this experiment is continued through the principles of the flexible school day and through the national Finnish hobby model, which seeks to ensure that every child has access to a free hobby corresponding to his or her interests as an integral part of the school day. Taken together, these arrangements show that in the Finnish case the all-day school is best understood as a broader organisational framework linking education, care, participation, physical activity, and well-being. The article also demonstrates that inclusive education in Finland is grounded in the principles of human rights, equal opportunities, timely support, pedagogical flexibility, and co-operation among different professionals. Inclusive education is therefore understood not as a narrowly defined branch of special education, but as a principle guiding the operation of the entire education system. In the Finnish context, inclusion is associated with the right to education, a safe learning environment, adequate support for learning and school attendance as soon as the need emerges, and the co-operation of teachers, specialists, and pupil welfare professionals. In this sense, inclusion is realised not only through legal regulation, but also through the practical organisation of support, the flexibility of pedagogical arrangements, and local educational decision-making. The relationship between the all-day school and inclusive education becomes particularly visible at the municipal level. The case of the Jyväskylä municipality shows that support for learning, after-school activities, specialist services, and local curriculum planning are organised as interconnected elements rather than as separate spheres. The examples of Jyväskylä and specific schools reveal that the extended structure of the school day may function as a system strengthening pupils’ well-being, social participation, and access to education. This relationship is particularly evident where municipal structures, school-level practices, and support services are organised in a coherent manner responsive to pupils’diverse needs. The analysis leads to the conclusion that in Finland the all-day school should not be interpreted as a single formal model. Rather, it is more productively understood as a set of interrelated arrangements combining education, care, support, well-being measures, and community relations. The Finnish case highlights three particularly significant directions: the structurally important role of the municipality in organising the extended school day and inclusive education measures; the consistent emphasis on child well-being through the integration of rest, movement, social relations, and meaningful engagement into everyday school life; and the understanding of the school as a community-based environment in which education, support, and participation are organised as a coherent whole. It is precisely this interaction that allows the Finnish case to be treated as an analytically significant basis for understanding the linkages between the all-day school and inclusive education.

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