Finnish town replaces laptops with books in schools

Literally embracing an ‘old-school’ approach to education

In an age when talk of digital transformation and artificial intelligence is omnipresent, one small Finnish municipality is looking the other way – at least in the school sphere. The City of Riihimäki, with a population of less than 30,000 inhabitants, has decided to replace the now-common digital devices with good, old-fashioned textbooks for some of the subjects.

The move will specifically apply to students in middle school (6^th to 9^th grades) and the reasoning behind it is that there is sufficient research already that shows that large amounts of time spent on digital tools, such as laptops and smartphones, is known to pose risks to the health and learning of children and young people.

"One of the tasks of elementary schools is to prepare young people to meet the demands of the digital environment. However, it is important to note that the digitalization of schools is not an uncontrollable avalanche, but we ourselves have the keys to control it. We can modify the teaching in the light of research information in such a way that it supports the student's learning and health in the best way", says Jari Lausvaara, director of education in the city of Riihimäki.

Paper beats screen

The Finnish municipality did its own research during the previous school year by sending out survey forms to students, parents, teachers and psychologists in order to gain insight into the usefulness and concerns about the different teaching materials used in the school environment.

It probably wouldn’t surprise you to find out that teachers and parents were more in favour of traditional paper-based study materials whereas the youngsters preferred digital tools. It was, however, found that digital devices were not very helpful in certain subjects, such as language learning and that paper materials and handwriting helped students concentrate better.

What may surprise you in this story is that Riihimäki is not just some backwater conservative town keen on sticking to the old ways. It’s actually known nationally and internationally as the capital of robotics education. Every elementary school student in Riihimäki gets 250 hours of robotics instruction during elementary school.

The authorities are just interested in finding a better balance in that mix with a view to maintaining students’ health and well-being while also teaching them more classic skills.