Education Beliefs of the Finnish

i had an interesting chat with the principal at the common room today.
she talked about how increasing number of finnish parents are expecting their child to excel academically and go to prestigious jobs (sounds familiar) when there is a lack of people in vocational jobs. there seems to stigma for people going to vocational schools even though they may earn much more then teachers or other white collar jobs.  there is also this concern abt how there is a high rate of kids are going to high school, which i thought was a good thing but they actually saw beyond the statistics and pointed out the implication where there will be an imbalance of workers for more hands on jobs. so they would need foreign workers to come in, ie estonia to fill these gaps.

and then there are some finnish parents whos are getting their child to learn english and go to english stream classes. it does puzzle me though. if they are also given equal access to learning English in a finnish stream. why is there a shift in attitude towards finnish stream?or would they be facing the same problems like sg edu system is having with their kids now. generations of kids who see no relevance of their MT, where parents speak only English at home because of the prestige and the doors it can supposedly open. what is the relevance of having english as a main medium when everything is in Finnish? Is that pride or resistance to a more inclusive environment?

so the worry about foreigners taking their jobs is they cant be self sustainable as an economy? but isnt that what we are facing in Singapore. what we need, we import. need more talents for competitions? bring them in from china. so if we need workers, we import them from overseas, malaysia, Philippines or whoever that wants to come. but i felt this resistance amongst the teachers when they talked about foreign workers from estonia.  is there pride to be self sustainable? or is that their mindset towards life and towards the country?