Anna Mantere ended home schooling after years of teaching her children
Sunday 4th October 2026 on 17:15 in
Finland
Anna Mantere, who had vowed never to send her children to school, eventually stopped teaching them at home and told them to go to school instead. She explained her decision and her concerns about schooling in an interview with Yle’s MOT.
Mantere says she chose home education before her first child was born because she wanted to spend as much time as possible with her three children and keep their relationships close. She believes school takes away time together and expects children to fit the same routines and rules. She also worries that children may be bullied or pick up swearing from classmates.
She says she believes schools teach a particular worldview. In her view, textbooks can encourage climate anxiety, and she questions how schools teach about gender. Mantere says she finds it surprising when young people still want children at 18, given what she considers the emphasis on climate anxiety in schoolbooks.
Mantere also says people around her have questioned her choice. She feels Finland is a country with “one truth”, where children are expected to attend school, and says there is little tolerance for different views.
Concerns over oversight
About 1,000 children are currently educated at home in Finland, three times as many as seven years ago. Parents must notify their municipality of the decision. A supervising teacher monitors the child’s learning, but legislation does not set how often reviews must take place. The usual practice is one to three meetings a year.
Finland’s Security Police has warned that the growth in home education could pose a security risk, saying authorities have difficulty monitoring teaching at home and in informal home-schooling groups. It has raised concerns about extremist teaching and the risk of radicalisation.
Yle’s MOT investigation found serious cases of neglect involving children registered for home education, as well as cases where supervising teachers struggled to contact families or arrange meetings. In some cases, teachers did not know what country a child was in. The Finnish National Agency for Education began a review of home education in the spring, but did not say how it had progressed.