Six Lapland municipalities build hybrid upper secondary school network

Lapland’s regional university, the University of Turku and six municipalities are developing a hybrid upper secondary school model in which lessons are taught simultaneously in different classrooms through remote connections, Yle reports.

The participating municipalities are Kemijärvi, Posio, Salla, Savukoski, Sodankylä and Rovaniemi.

In Savukoski, which has fewer than 1,000 residents, students who want to study advanced mathematics face a problem because the municipality does not have a teacher for the subject. Under the hybrid model, a student in Savukoski could join an advanced mathematics class taught in another municipality.

The project is intended to address the shrinking size of age groups, demographic change and the rising cost of organising education, which particularly threaten educational opportunities in sparsely populated areas.

Another challenge is the tuition fee introduced in August 2026 for degree students from outside the European Union and European Economic Area. Small municipalities have attracted upper secondary students from abroad through such students, according to the article.

Heli Ruokamo, a professor of media education at the University of Lapland and the project’s leader, said broader cooperation between upper secondary schools was necessary to maintain high-quality education in sparsely populated areas.

Each participating upper secondary school will produce teaching content for shared use. Students will be able to choose courses offered by other schools, expanding the range of subjects available to them.

The lessons will take place simultaneously in classrooms at different schools using remote connections. Ruokamo said remote students must participate in joint work and the construction of shared knowledge rather than act as passive listeners.

Remote teaching itself is not new. Similar cooperation between small upper secondary schools in Lapland was tried about 15 years ago, including in the teaching of less commonly studied languages. That arrangement ended when the project coordinating the supply and demand for teaching concluded.

Ruokamo said the new project differs because six municipalities are now pursuing systematic and permanent cooperation, whereas earlier trials were short-lived.

The University of Lapland has researched and developed online teaching for 30 years. Ruokamo said effective online pedagogy should involve collaborative learning, with technology serving as a tool for interaction rather than simply showing a teacher on screen.

The hybrid schools will also use artificial intelligence and learning analytics, including the Ville learning environment developed at the University of Turku. The application gives students immediate automated feedback on correct and incorrect answers, offers model solutions when needed and uses game-like rewards such as trophies and progress bars to encourage them.

The project began in September 2026. Its first pilots will start around the turn of the year, and it has total funding of about one million euros. The project will continue until 2028.

Teachers have responded mostly positively, although some have worried that the model could reduce teaching opportunities. Ruokamo said the aim was instead to increase and preserve them.