Pre-primary
Practical children’s nurses/kindergarten practical nurses/practical nursesworking in the day-care centre participate in care and educational duties together with kindergarten teachers and other staff. In addition, day-care centres have kitchen personnel responsible for catering.
Basic education and upper secondary education and training
Special needs assistantsmay be employed by a local authority, a school, a special class or for one or more pupil with severe disabilities. The nature, duties and operational priorities of individual special needs assistants vary according to their assignments.
Student welfare officers, in turn, help pupils with problems relating to growth and development or difficulties at school. Typical situations requiring a student welfare officer’s attention include truancy, bullying and problems caused by changing schools or classes. School psychologists deal with learning and adjustment problems at schools. Their duties are divided between determination, treatment and prevention of problems and provision of consultancy for teachers. Psychologists contribute to charting and improving the circumstances of individual pupils experiencing school-related and interpersonal difficulties in co-operation with teachers, parents and pupils themselves. Most school psychologists work at more than one school. According to the Primary Health Care Act (66/1972), each local authority is required to maintain school health care services. For this purpose, schools have school public health nurses and school doctors. School doctors usually hold their surgeries on certain days each week or month.
Comprehensive schools may also have club instructors to organise extracurricular activities.
School secretaries(office secretaries, school clerks, office clerks) deal with office duties relating to school operations. Their job descriptions may also include different tasks related to pupil welfare services and staff administration. The duties of study advisors working at vocational institutions include providing information on education and training and producing related publications, participating in the organisation of student admission procedures and preparing study affairs for decision-making bodies, carrying out different types of surveys and setting up initiatives, providing advice for international students, etc. Course secretaries (education secretaries) communicate information between teachers, students and education planners. To some extent, they may also participate in planning education and training, as members of different working groups that plan education and training, for example. Their work often involves provision of information and related publishing activities.
Workplace instructorsare employees in an enterprise, who are responsible for the students, who are completing their compulsory six-month on-the-job learning period in vocational upper secondary education and training.
PC support specialists(often working part-time at comprehensive schools and general upper secondary schools) are responsible for the functionality and safety of computers (PCs, networks) and peripherals in everyday operations.
Schools may also have librarians responsible for running the school library.
School attendants(caretakers) look after the order and tidiness of school areas and facilities. In many cases, their duties also include simple property maintenance and repairs. Schools also have personnel responsible for cleaning and catering.