It is estimated that 52,000 children will attend pre-school education, the organisation of which is to be the responsibility of the municipalities. The cost to the State of the initial education reform will amount to FIM 206 million. Reforms needed in Public Health Nurse training The Public Health Nurse exam will be extended so that it is based on Registered Nurse training which comprises 140 credits and gives RN status. The training will be immediately followed by 20 to 40 credits after which The National Board of Medicolegal Affairs will register the students as Public Health Nurses. According to Minister Rask, this reform can be implemented for students starting their training in August 2001, as its prerequisite is the reform of RN training.
Polytechnics ought to focus their foreign language teaching into separate units, says the committee.
Closer cooperation is also needed between polytechnics and universities, secondary education institutes and general liberal education. This would enable the polytechnics to offer a sufficient range of languages to their students. According to the committee, the polytechnics also need more resources to develop new language teaching methods and to arrange for complementary education for teachers. The so-called Taisto II committee has been given the task of charting the obstacles and restrictions which business and employment policies put on artists' activities. The issues include grants giving a better pension coverage and the possibility of increasing the artist's pension.