Tabloid daily Iltalehti (siirryt toiseen palveluun) leads off its Monday paper with Prime Minister Juha Sipilä’s estimate that it will cost the country 100 million euros to manage the current refugee crisis this year. According to the paper the premier said however that he could not say how much Finland would spend managing the crisis next year.
"These discussions are still open. I can’t provide precise numbers, but we’re talking about a significant additional requirement for next year," Sipilä said during his first PM's radio interview with the media on Sunday.
Sipilä called on Finland and other EU countries to each bear "their own burden" during the ongoing crisis, which has so far this year seen more than 200,000 asylum seekers enter Europe from conflict-riddled zones in North Africa.
The Prime Minister noted that the EU had handled the civil crisis in Syria badly. He pointed out that Syria’s neighbour Lebanon, which has a population of just four million, had taken in 1.5 million people fleeing violence in Syria.
City officials to remove deadly steel cable
Meanwhile rival daily Ilta Sanomat (siirryt toiseen palveluun) reports Monday morning that Helsinki city officials plan to remove a steel cable that was strung across a ski jump slope in Herttoniemi to prevent unauthorised use of the facilities. A 16 year-old girl was killed when she struck the cable as she slid down the slope with two friends late Saturday night. Her two companions were injured and were treated at hospital.
City sports services communications chief Essi Eranka told IS that the cable was originally strung up to prevent vandalism.
"People have been driving there with mopeds and cars," she explained.
Eranka added that the cable would most likely be removed and a fence erected to keep intruders out of the facility. On Sunday evening many residents gathered at the site to pay their respects to the young girl. Mourners also left candles and flowers in a spontaneous memorial to the deceased.
HS: Girls beat boys 2:1 to enter upper secondary school
Leading circulation daily Helsingin Sanomat (siirryt toiseen palveluun) headlines the results of a survey showing that girls are outpacing their male peers when it comes to securing a place at the country’s best upper secondary schools.
According to the paper, boys accounted for just one-third of new entrants into top high schools across the country. The paper said it examined the gender split among the leading schools in major cities. It defined top high schools as those where the required average score for admission was higher than in other institutions.
HS reports that girls’ dominance in academic institutions has only increased as large cities have reduced the number of upper secondary schools in recent years. The effect of the stiffer competition for fewer sought-after places has been to increase the required average beyond the reach of many boys – in some cases the minimum average has been as high as 8.5.
The paper’s survey showed that scores of upper secondary schools in Finland are fast moving away from the co-ed model as a result of the achievement-based selection. However it notes that some schools are bucking the trend. This autumn boys accounted for 64 percent of the intake of new students at Vuosaari upper secondary school in eastern Helsinki. In Leppävaara in Espoo, the proportion was 63 percent.
Board of education officials say they’re keenly following the situation, since the gender divide does not provide for ideal learning environments. It has advised that neither sex should exceed 60 percent in a single school.
But men still rule in listed companies
While girls may be outperforming boys in high school, the odds appear to tip in favour of men later in life. Tampere-based Aamulehti (siirryt toiseen palveluun) runs a piece looking at men’s domination of top executive positions in stock exchange listed companies. The paper noted that during the past year-and-a-half 19 listed companies appointed new CEOs – just one was a woman and under the age of 40, Tiina Alahuhta-Kasko, CEO of Marimekko.
A closer look at the 19 companies found that the typical chief executive was a 50-odd year-old man with an engineering or commercial background and that many rose up from within the ranks of the company they eventually led. Karl-Johan Kronberg of the hiring consultancy firm Mercuri Urval said that the choice of CEO reflects the business structure of Finnish society, which has traditionally been technology- and industry-oriented.