No one can deny the important of education in any country, it’s the way you can build human and make a real evolution in many fields. Finland is usually mentioned quite a lot in articles or fun facts about best education systems in the world, and they’re usually Finland’s mentioned when we’re talking about school systems that consistently ranked at the top of the world in these international rankings.
The quetion is: should other countries Adopt Finland’s Education System? So before answering the question, let us give you a brief overview on schools and the education system in Finland.
The education system in Finland
The school starting age is seven years old; lessons typically start at around 9:00 to 9:30 in the morning with the school day lasting no longer than five hours students. Also get to enjoy a 15-minute break after every lesson, in addition to receiving no more than 30 minutes worth of homework every day. Most interestingly students are only required to complete one formal examination in their entire primary and secondary schooling. But despite this, Finland typically earns a spot in the top three among other countries when it comes to academic achievement and efficiency. So taking these facts into account, we’re sure all of you are left with one burning question; why have other countries such as the United States not adopted Finland’s methods despite its immense success? Especially since the United States generally lingers around the middle of the table when it comes to academics.
Why have other countries not adopted Finland’s methods despite its immense success?
The world has set its priorities with regards to education. These priorities vary considerably. Pasi Salzberg a Finnish Authority in education has written about the subjects many times. He points out that you just can’t take some features from the Finnish education system and transfer them into a completely different culture. So to adopts the positive features of Finnish education, you have to adopt the other things as well; such as cultural values. In the USA Finland is regarded to be a socialist country by many.
Some other countries have a better understanding of the Nordic model. Hence they may be more likely to benefit from some of its features. There’s one feature in the Finnish education system that’s Pasi Salzberg pointed out, that we think most other educational systems lack these days; the culture of trust. It seems to be a characteristic for Nordic countries that they trust their authorities, they trust each other, they trust their parents, teachers and students etc… this has huge impacts on things like the professional independence of teachers and how students are tested. Of course they have rules, bureaucracy and control in their education system. But many things are still based on trust. Teachers are trusted to do their jobs without having their performance measured all the time, and the same applies to students. They do have tests separate from formal examinations much like the tests you expect to get at the end of a course. But the students are not tested on a scale that other education systems do with their students. Students are trusted to have responsibility and to do their best.
Another important cultural feature resulted from the decision that was made on whether schools in Finland should offer the best of the best education for high scoring students, or the equally high quality normal education for all people regardless of their academic ability. Unanimously the latter was chosen it was a cultural choice in general and it’s a big factor as to why Finland is so successful in terms of Education. But quite obviously when you look at the US, their cultural preference is rather different the third significant cultural feature lies in the teacher’s education in Finland. It’s quite hard to become a teacher largely, because in order to be one you need top quality education such as a master’s degree in the required field of study. The profession is highly valued and the salaries are rather good as well the studies are high level yet. The educational pressure lies predominantly in the way the teachers educate rather than in the schools when teachers are trusted by the schools. It’s that sense of trust that empowers them to do a good job.
PISA examinations
All these factors leads the good results Finland students have achieved in its national tests, such as a program for international student assessment or PISA.The thing is Finland didn’t realize how good and effective their education system was, until they took part in the PISA examinations.
By looking at this we would say that Finland’s educational system is not the results of student test scores. In fact it’s quite the opposite and many teachers agree. All-in-all we believe that cultural values have the biggest effect on the organization of an education system. However we don’t believe that fender the style of Education can be applied to other systems as such. But maybe it can be used as an inspiration hence parts of it can be tested in other cultures too.
