A student who killed a female classmate during a classroom rampage in Finland last year will be charged with murder and 20 counts of attempted murder, prosecutors said on Friday.

The man, born in 1994, attacked his fellow students armed with a sword and a gun at Savo Vocational College in the eastern town of Kuopio on October 1 last year. 

One student, a Ukrainian citizen born in 1996, died of stab wounds, and a further 10 people were injured including a police officer, authorities said at the time.

Prosecutors said the case will begin on September 8 at North Savo District Court. 

Violent crime is relatively rare in Finland, a sparsely populated Nordic nation of 5.5 million people. 

However two school shootings in the late 2000s caused widespread shock and led to changes in the country's gun laws.