Finland's landmark early education study of 38,000 children has delivered a clear verdict on a major policy experiment. A two-year preschool program, rolled out nationally in a bid to level children's skills before primary school, shows practically no benefit over the existing one-year model, according to comprehensive research results published this week.
The Goal Versus the Outcome
The extensive trial, involving children born in 2016 and 2017 across 148 municipalities between 2021 and 2024, was designed to tackle a persistent national concern. Researchers and policymakers have long worried that children in Finland begin their formal school paths from vastly different starting points. The hypothesis was that starting structured, goal-oriented early childhood education at age five, instead of six, would help bridge those gaps in academic and socio-emotional skills before first grade. "The background of the research project was concern that children in Finland start their school paths from different starting points," the study notes. However, the data now shows this specific intervention did not achieve its core objective.
What the Research Actually Found
Led by Aalto University economics professor Matti Sarvimäki, a team of around twenty researchers from economics and educational sciences analyzed the outcomes. They compared the development of children in the two-year preschool program to those who participated in the standard one-year preschool model at age six. The conclusion was stark. "The skills of the children participating in the study develop just as quickly in the current system as in the two-year preschool," Sarvimäki states. The research found practically no impact on children's academic or socio-emotional skills when the alternative was participation in the current preschool model. In other words, the extra year of targeted pedagogy did not solve the problems it was intended to address.
The Persistent Gaps in Finnish Schools
The findings throw a spotlight on the entrenched inequalities the policy sought to fix, which the study itself corroborates. Existing research already shows that children of highly educated mothers, children with parents born in Finland, and children born early in the year perform better in all assessments than their peers. The new data collected for this trial also reveals that early childhood education teachers perceive five-year-old girls as being much more socially and emotionally mature than boys of the same age. On average, girls receive better scores in all assessments except mathematical readiness. These patterns, evident before the two-year program, remained unchanged after its implementation, indicating the intervention did not alter the underlying dynamics of educational disparity.
Political Reactions and Policy Crossroads
The results land at a sensitive time for Finnish education policy, which has faced recent international scrutiny over declining PISA scores. The two-year preschool experiment represented a significant ideological and financial investment, promoted by several government coalitions over the past decade as a key tool for equity. The findings now force a major rethink within the halls of the Ministry of Education and Culture and the parliamentary education committee. Key parties in the current governing coalition, including the National Coalition Party and the Finns Party, have previously emphasized cost-effectiveness in public services. This research provides potent data for those arguing against expanding publicly funded early childhood education models without proven returns.
Opposition parties, particularly the Social Democrats and the Left Alliance, have historically championed increased investment in early interventions. They are now faced with evidence that the specific model trialed did not yield results. The political debate will likely shift toward questioning whether the quality and content of the preschool instruction, rather than simply its duration, need re-examination. Some municipal education directors have already pointed to vast differences in how the two-year model was implemented across the country, suggesting consistency and teacher training might be greater factors than the policy framework itself.
Looking Beyond the Two-Year Model
Professor Sarvimäki's team emphasizes that their study evaluates a specific policy instrument, not the value of early childhood education overall. The results do not suggest that high-quality early care is unimportant. Instead, they indicate that simply extending the current preschool pedagogy downward by a year is not an effective mechanism for skill equalization. The conversation is now turning toward more targeted support. Experts suggest that interventions might need to be more intensely focused on children showing the greatest need for support in language or social skills, rather than applying a universal two-year model to all children.
The study also raises questions about measurement. The assessment of 'socio-emotional skills' relies heavily on teacher evaluations, which the study's own data shows can be subjective and influenced by a child's gender. Developing more objective tools to assess these non-academic skills could be a necessary next step for Finnish education research. For now, the nearly 38,000 children who participated have provided a definitive answer. As Finland searches for new ways to ensure an equal start for every child, this massive experiment has conclusively closed one major policy chapter.