Is school burnout here to stay? Evidence from two longitudinal studies across Finnish general upper secondary schools

School burnout comprises of exhaustion, cynicism, and inefficacy, and they separately and together weaken students’ mental wellbeing and schoolwork competence. Students were followed across general upper secondary education from 2005 to 2008 (Cohort 1, N = 301) and from 2018 to 2021 (Cohort 2, N = 641). Mean level differences between the cohorts and the development of school burnout and its dimensions across the three years of general upper secondary school were examined using t-tests and repeated measures general linear modeling. Students in Cohort 1 started their upper secondary education at a lower level of overall burnout but had reached the same level of burnout as Cohort 2 by the last school year. A similar development was seen in exhaustion. Inadequacy and cynicism increased across time in both cohorts. Female students reported higher overall burnout, exhaustion, and inadequacy than male students in both cohorts. To change the stable and negative trend in students’ burnout, and prevent the negative consequences of it, effective interventions are needed, instead overseeing school burnout from year to year as an unsolved problem.