The Finnish Folk High School is a part of the Swedish folkbildning system together with 150 other Folk high schools in Sweden. The Finnish Folk High School Foundation established the Folk High School in the beginning of 1990. The foundation consists of seven representatives of the founding Finnish associations as well as personal and student members. A Principal assisted by three study councils runs the school. The staff consists of over 20 teachers and teacher assistants in addition to administrative and service personal.
         In the beginning the school's target group was the Finnish immigrants in Gothenburg. By 1996 other immigrant groups such as Somali, Arabic and Kurdish speaking were also interested in the school and thus the school became a multicultural Folk High school. Today the school has a staff of 35 persons speaking 19 different mother tongues and about 330 students belonging to more than 24 different ethnic groups.
         Right now thew school has 140 students in seven general folk high school courses and 130 students of Swedish for Immigrants participating in a number of daily and evening study groups. The school has since 2002 a vocational training course to train 40 students as social care workers with multicultural profile. In addition, the school has short courses for Finnish seniors in music, oil painting, ceramics and basic computer training.
           The school has been participating actively in projects for and involving immigrants in Sweden and Gothenburg. These projects aims to elevate the group integration into the Swedish society and to improve the immigrants chance to enter the Swedish labor market and to promote public health and social economy. The schools have plans to develop new vocational training courses in the filed of elderly care. The majority of our students are young immigrant parents with more than three children. That is why we started in 2010 a Montessori preschool to address the student's needs to leave their children in daytime. There are 18 children, ages 1-5, in the preschool. The staff consists of five caretakers, from five different countries. The work is carried on in close corporation with parents and children.
           The Montessory pedagogy is based on varying conditions and needs of the individual child. The children are encouraged to be independent and to use Swedish. At the same time the preschool offers support for teaching children their parent's mother tongue according to the Swedish rules.