On 28 August 2019, the Ministry of Education and Culture appointed a project group and a monitoring group to implement the Government Programme policy for extended compulsory education. The legislation on the extension of compulsory education was adopted at the end of 2020, and the extended compulsory education entered into force in 2021 one age group at a time.

The Ministry of Education and Culture and the Finnish National Agency for Education have prepared a plan for monitoring the implementation of extended compulsory education in 2021-2024. The plan was discussed in the project group and in the monitoring group for extended compulsory education.

The plan is based on monitoring the implementation as stated in a government proposal, on resolutions attached to the parliamentary reply and on the monitoring obligations stated in them. It describes the premises, principles, targets, implementation and schedule for monitoring the implementation of extended compulsory education.

The monitoring of the extension of compulsory education is divided into seven thematic entities:

1. Application and admissions for those within the scope of compulsory education 2. Study guidance and engagement in education 3. Teaching and guidance 4. Special needs support and other forms of support 5. Student wellbeing 6. Cost effects of the reform 7. Realisation and impact of the objectives of the reform.

The monitoring will be carried out mainly by making use of existing registers and other information sources and the predominantly quantitative information contained in them, and by carrying out separate surveys, reports, studies or assessments, if necessary. The monitoring, research and evaluation data that each thematic entity provides will be used as part of the long-term impact assessment of the compulsory education reform and the overall evaluation of the implementation of the reform at the end of the monitoring period.