More than fifty-two percent of students beginning their degrees this autumn will be male. Accordingly, Oulu is the Finnish university with the most 'boy power.' In other universities, including those specialising in economics or technical subjects, there remain more women than men.
One of the most 'girl power' oriented universities is Oulu's near neighbour. The University of Lapland (based in Rovaniemi) is three quarters female and throughout the country only forty-five percent of new undergraduates are male.Until last year men predominated in technical subjects but were recently over-taken by women. Female students have long dominated the humanities and the social sciences.
Oulu University may be bucking a gender trend which has been increasingly noticed across the country in recent years. In 2007, Turku University announced that the majority of the doctorates which it awarded were being bestowed upon women and other universities have since revealed similar findings.
According to one Oulu academic, who wished to remain anonymous, the main issue in the difference is the schools. 'Girls seem to work harder at school at getting into a Finnish university involves taking exams where you really have to study hard. Maybe the recession, or something, has made even boys think, "Hey, maybe I'd better work harder!"
Studies across the world have shown that girls out perform boys at school in all subjects and at university they tend to get higher grades than boys on average. However, the very highest grades - especially in the hard sciences - still tend to be achieved by male students.
