General upper secondary education is provided by upper secondary schools, upper secondary schools for adults, and other educational institutions. Licences to provide general upper secondary education are granted by the Ministry of Education to local authorities, joint municipal authorities, registered associations or foundations. Most providers of general upper secondary education are local authorities but some 8 per cent is offered by institutions maintained by private organisations.

The Ministry of Education has granted some upper secondary schools with special educational tasks based on the curriculum. At present, there are about 70 upper secondary schools with a special educational task based on the curriculum. These specialised upper secondary schools emphasise their instruction in accordance with their special educational tasks, but they do offer the opportunity to complete an ordinary study programme. Specialised upper secondary schools primarily function in the following fields: music, visual arts, creative dramatics, art and media, languages, environmental sciences, natural sciences, mathematics, technology, technical studies and sports.

15 of the upper secondary schools offer instruction leading to the International Baccalaureate IB, one to Reifeprüfung and one to Gymnasie-examen (Ahvenanmaa – Åland).

A few schools offer their instruction in accordance with the Steiner pedagogy and a few arrange instruction in a foreign language.

According to Statistics Finland, a total of 112 100 students attended general upper secondary education in 2009. The number of students continued to decrease and was nearly two per cent lower than a year before. 57 per cent of the students were female and education was provided in 398 general upper secondary schools and 43 other institutions.

A total of 32 643 students passed the matriculation examination in 2009 and this was slightly up by 0.2  per cent from the previous year. 342 students finished their International Baccalaureate IB in the 15 institutions providing them, 39 Reifeprüfung examinations and 10 Gymnasie-examen (Åland Lyceum).

Provision of General Upper Secondary Education by Types of Institution, Years 2005-2009

Source: WERA Information Sercives, Finnish National Board of Education

The local authorities, joint municipal authorities and private organisations receive state funding for establishment and operating costs through the statutory government transfer system. The criteria for funding are usually uniform irrespective of ownership. The State grants and pays state subsidies to education providers, which are responsible for the practical operations of their institutions. The local authorities can autonomously decide whether they delegate the budgetary responsibilities to the schools or not.

In terms of funding for general secondary education, the average state subsidies and municipal contributions account for 42 per cent and 58 per cent of the calculatory costs respectively. The criteria for funding are defined according to student quantities or some other performance indicator and according to the unit price per relevant indicator as confirmed by the Ministry of Education.

Private provision

According to the General Upper Secondary Schools Act (629/1998), a municipality, a joint municipal authority, registered association or foundation may be granted a licence to provide general upper secondary education. The licence may be granted also for education organised outside Finland.

General upper secondary schools and the corresponding levels of other schools maintained by private organisations (in 2009 about 8 per cent of all upper secondary schools) are supervised by the school authorities. School-leaving certificates from these institutions give the same benefits and rights as those awarded by municipal upper secondary schools.