The All Points North podcast this week looks at the recent media controversy over "S2" or Finnish as a second language teaching in schools.
Studies have shown that some students in these classes have a very low level of Finnish skills even after years learning the language.
At the same time, research has indicated that some pupils in these segregated classes are better at Finnish than many of those in 'normal' Finnish classes.
Lauri Ståhlberg looked into the issue and tested a sample of children in both S1 and S2 classes. His paper is due out in April.
"One-fifth of the pupils who were studying Finnish as a second language read so well that they maybe could participate in Finnish as a first language studies," said Ståhlberg.
"So there were 362 pupils whose reading skills were better than one third of the Finnish as a first language students and it was about 2000 pupils."
We spoke to Aicha Manai, an APN listener whose child was placed in S2 lessons even though his Finnish was at a native level.
"We speak three languages at home, but our son responds to us in Finnish 99 percent of the time," said Manai. "My husband and I speak Finnish together—this has never been an issue, so it felt very out of left field."
We also spoke with Elina Helmanen from the Familia NGO, which is proposing a citizens' initiative to allow people to register more than one native language.
That could help schools deal with these issues, according to Helmanen, but there are other issues involved in pupil selection.
"Of course the racism and discrimination is still something that should be focused on, but it would help," said Helmanen.
We also asked what's on at this year's DocPoint festival. Alongside a strong music programme and various other themes, the pandemic has cast a shadow on the film selection.
"A lot of us had to or were able to spend a lot of time with our families and I saw that a lot when selecting films for DocPoint," said Inka Achté, the festival's head of programming.
"There were a lot of films where directors have turned the camera towards their own family members and themselves and the often difficult family relationships they have with their loved ones, their families."
It has been a grim couple of years for everyone, and that includes filmmakers.
"So this is why we also have a lot of films dedicated to how wonderful humans are and what's funny and beautiful about us," said Achté.
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This week's show was presented by Egan Richardson and Zena Iovino. The sound engineer was Panu Willman.
If you have any questions or would like to share your thoughts, contact us via WhatsApp on +358 44 421 0909, on our Facebook or Twitter accounts, or at yle.news@yle.fi and allpointsnorth@yle.fi.
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EDIT 3.2.2023: Article was editied to clarify details of Ståhlberg's research.