Mandatory Swedish

In Finland, Swedish is a mandatory school subject for Finnish-speaking pupils in the last three years of the primary education (grades 7 to 9). This so-called other domestic language is also mandatory in high schools, vocational schools, and vocational universities. Furthermore, all university graduates must demonstrate a certain level of proficiency in Swedish (the so-called public servant's Swedish). Altogether 92% of Finnish citizens are native Finnish speakers, whereas 5.5% of the population report Swedish as their mother tongue. Currently, it is possible for Finnish citizens to report a different mother tongue for themselves at any time, and as many times as desired, by submitting a form to the Population Register Center.According to the Finnish constitution, both Finnish and Swedish are national languages. The employees of the national government and the bilingual municipal governments are required to be able to serve citizens in Swedish. Finnish service is not required in the autonomous region of Åland. The official term for both mandatory Swedish and Finnish is the other domestic language. However, the requirement to study Swedish is often referred to as pakkoruotsi, a somewhat charged term in Finnish meaning ""mandatory Swedish"", or ""enforced Swedish"".