Veteran craft teacher warns Tampere pupils can't use scissors, lack basic manual skills

Many primary school pupils in Tampere now lack basic scissor skills, a problem highlighted in a Tamperelainen report that quotes veteran craft teacher Minna Hankala-Vuorinen.

With more than 35 years in the classroom and as chair of the Handcraft Teachers' Union, Hankala-Vuorinen points to jagged scissor cuts, trouble using tape measures and a fall-off in knitting skills. She blames fewer craft lessons after the latest national curriculum changes and the way smartphones occupy children's hands and free time. The result, she says, is worrying.

In Tampere, seventh graders receive three hours of craft a week covering both technical work and textiles, while some areas give pupils only two. That difference, according to Hankala-Vuorinen, makes a practical skills gap more likely.

The issue is part of a wider national debate after Finland's expanded compulsory education exposed gaps in practical and vocational skills earlier this year that prompted calls for reform. Tampere has also unveiled a citywide digital-skills roadmap for schools to 2035, reflecting a push toward digital teaching even as some educators warn hands-on skills are being squeezed the city's digital-skills roadmap.

Hankala-Vuorinen wants a national increase in lesson time: at least four weekly hours of shared craft in lower secondary school and a minimum of two weekly hours in primary school. She is part of a working group revising the craft curriculum to give teachers clearer, more concrete lesson examples, and she hopes craft will be added to the new cohort of matriculation exam skill subjects scheduled to start in autumn 2029. Craft teaching, she argues, builds fine motor control, spatial reasoning and even mathematical thinking.

The Finnish Handicrafts fair takes place at the Tampere Exhibition and Sports Centre on 13–15 November.