General upper secondary school
General upper secondary education given in is post-comprehensive school general education that provides the qualifications for studying at universities, universities of applied sciences, and in vocational education based on the upper secondary school curriculum.
There are three municipal general upper secondary schools in Vaasa: the Finnish-speaking Vaasan Lyseon Lukio and the Swedish-speaking Vasa Gymnasium and Vasa Svenska Aftonläroverk. Vaasan Lyseon Lukio also operates an adult education line.
General upper secondary education is also provided at Vasa Övningsskola Gymnasium, which serves as the training school for Åbo Akademi University’s teacher education, and its IB line. The IB line is taught in English and is attended by both Finnish- and Swedish-speaking students.
Finland’s first bilingual general upper secondary campus
Vaasa is home to Finland’s first bilingual upper secondary campus: Vaasan Lyseon Lukio and Vasa Gymnasium operate under the same roof.
Both schools offer:
- Open course offerings, allowing students to choose courses across language boundaries.
- Class tandem teaching, where Finnish- and Swedish-speaking students form pairs and study together. Class tandem provides language learners with the opportunity to learn the language in authentic interaction situations with native speakers.
- Co-teaching, where one course/class is conducted in both teaching languages simultaneously.