Tens of thousands of comprehensive schools students across the country receive instruction in another religion than Evangelical Lutheranism, which is Finland's national religion.
As Finland's population becomes more culturally diverse through immigration, municipalities struggle to provide instruction for a growing number of religions.
Tampere's Educational Services Development Director Veli-Matti Kanerva says the current system of parallel religion classes should be replaced with general ethics studies.
"It's difficult to find qualified teachers for minority religions in Finland. The teachers we do finds lack a pedagogical background," says Kanerva.
Schools must provide religious instruction if a municipality has a minimum of three pupils who belong to that religious denomination. For example, Helsinki city officials slam this requirement as being too ambitious.
Many smaller cities, such as Ylöjärvi, a small town with 30,000 inhabitants on the outskirts of Tampere, strain to provide special religion classes for a handful of students. Ylöjärvi schools teach Orthodox Christianity, Roman Catholicism and Islam in addition to Evangelical Lutheranism.
Kanerva says that ultimately replacing Lutheranism in schools with general religion studies supports multiculturalism. He points out that segregating students according to their faith sends a mixed message on tolerance.
"How can we learn tolerance when groups are segregated? I'm against this practice because it's a paradox," says Kanerva.
