Employed at basic education
We want to ensure the professional success and wellbeing of everyone working in basic education whilst also ensuring that they know their rights and obligations.
Benefits and services for members
As an OAJ member, you are a member of OAJ-YSI’s national association
Our members are organised in national districts and associations according to the school grade, education sector or educational institution they represent.
The national districts and associations compile goals related to member advocacy and policy as well as give presentations, launch initiatives and organise training. The OAJ General Education Teachers (OAJ-YSI) group includes teachers in comprehensive and upper secondary schools as well as a number of teachers in general adult education.
Read more about OAJ’s organisational structure
We are your advocates
You are doing valuable work, which should also be reflected in your salary and working conditions. In addition to advocacy for teachers, our operations are based on the development of teaching and research legislation and funding.
We influence the industry’s appreciation in contract negotiations and, through political advocacy work, locally, nationally and internationally, and we take a stand on policies concerning the education reforms.
Our goals
The deterioration in basic skills calls for action. A concrete way of strengthening basic skills is to add lessons to the total number of hours in basic education.
The allocation of lessons to different subjects and different year classes is decided locally, and this does not require changes to the national curriculum. Increasing the number of lessons can also increase the number of options a pupil has.
Pupils’ right to special needs education must be recorded in the law. The minimum number of hours to which the pupil is entitled in the subjects in which they have learning and schooling challenges must be defined for part-time special needs education.
In special needs support, it must be provided that pupils have the right to full-time special needs education in a small group in one or more subjects. A pupil is transferred to special needs support if part-time special needs education and the support provided to the general education group are not sufficient.
Teacher dimensioning must be strengthened to improve the quality of teaching and learning support.
The right to special needs education must be secured with binding provisions. The current maximum group size of 10 pupils in special needs classes must be observed in all special needs education. In addition, binding dimensioning (1:100; 1:50 in preschool and early elementary education) must be adjusted for part-time special needs education.
Adequate guidance counselling must be ensured with a dimensioning of 1:150. The general teacher dimensioning must be strengthened with a national recommendation (1:20; 1:18 in early elementary education).
The development of the use of digitalisation during the pandemic should not be discarded. A national strategy for the digitalisation of learning must be drawn up to guide the use of digitalisation in a way that supports pedagogy and equality.
As part of the strategy, clear boundary conditions must be drawn up for remote contact teaching to ensure the quality of teaching. The comprehensive task of basic education will continue to be based on contact teaching, and the legislation concerning distance teaching should not be amended.
An extensive development programme must be launched to strengthen the skills of learners with immigrant backgrounds. The programme would include legislative reforms in basic education and native language teaching as well as the development of Finnish or Swedish as a second language (S2) teaching and increasing the number of teaching hours. Strengthening supported language-conscious teaching.