As most Western economies struggle with sluggish economic growth, political leaders search for those factors that will give them competitive advantage so that when ‘normality’ returns their countries will be the first to benefit. Ask any economist or political leader to tell you what the most important key success factor is for a vibrant economy and you are likely to be told that educational excellence is the hallmark of economic success.
The difficult part is how to achieve such excellence. Governments have looked at different models that seem to offer the best educational strategies. Others get stuck in tactical issues that are meant to capture headlines in the media – like building new schools. Of course, every country faces different educational challenges. Some countries like Finland have a homogenous population with a low poverty rate while others have to deal with the complexities of a multicultural society.
One country that is certainly inspiring many others with its successful educational reforms is Finland. Pasi Sahlberg, a Finnish educator and author, has written various books on the reforms his country implemented in the last three decades to achieve educational excellence. One of his books entitled What Can the World Learn From Educational Change in Finland, he reveals some of the reason for his country’s success story.
Sahlberg puts high-quality teachers at the heart of Finland’s educational success. Three decades ago Finland’s political and educational leaders realised that to be successful in the knowledge economy, they needed to reform their educational system. Their economy at the time was still dependent on forestry and manufacturing and Finnish politicians realised that only an excellent educational system could help them succeed in the new economy that was gradually replacing old industries.
One of the most enlightened decisions the Finnish authorities took was to employ the best available graduates to teach their children. They identified the best graduates that were working for private industry for relatively high salaries and lured them to become teachers. In Finland today it is more difficult getting into teacher education than law or medicine. Teachers are selected from the top 10 per cent of graduates and all teachers must have a Masters degree that is financed by the state.
Finnish teachers only spend four hours a day in the classroom, and take two hours a week for professional development. In Finland teachers have fewer students in their classrooms than is the case in most Western countries. Science classes are capped at 16 students so that they may perform practical experiments in every class.
The primary aim of education is to serve as an equalising instrument for society
Children in Finland start formal education at the age of seven. Homework is scorned and there is only one mandatory standardised test in Finland, taken when children are 16. All children, clever or not, are taught in the same classrooms and 30 per cent of children receive extra help during the first nine years of school.
The result of this rather unorthodox educational system is that 66 per cent of Finnish students go to university – the highest rate in Europe. That 93 per cent of Finns graduate from secondary school and vocational education is held in high esteem in the country.
This blueprint of reform contrasts with some of the things being done in other countries. In Britain, the former Conservative education minister Michael Gove pushed through educational reforms that were mainly based on giving about 4,000 secondary schools freedom “to control their own staffing, curriculum and budgets”. But the introduction of semi-independent academies has only brought limited success. The main planks of reforms in most Western countries are emphasis on core subjects, competition, standardisation, test-based accountability, and control.
By contrast in Finland the national curriculum is only broad guidelines. There is no merit pay for teachers and in Finnish society teachers are given the same status as doctors and lawyers. Yet Finnish children rank at the top of achievement leagues for science, reading and mathematics.
One caveat that Sahlberg often repeats is that not all aspects of Finnish educational reform are portable. He told American educators: “Don’t try to apply anything. It won’t work because education is a very complex system.” He also attributes part of the success of his country’s reform to the Lutheran leanings and almost religious belief in equality and opportunity in Finnish society.
As Western societies face new socio-economic problems of increasing inequality where the rich are getting richer and the poor are now poorer, “the primary aim of education is to serve as an equalising instrument for society”.
johncassawhite@yahoo.com