A Tale of the Finnish Education Miracle

I came across an interesting article last week. The article mentioned how Finland, despite not following many of the globally standardised education norms, still was among the top performing countries in the PISA. PISA, conducted by the Organisation for Economic Co-Operation and Development (OECD), evaluates the critical thinking of 15-year old students across the world in maths, science and reading.

This mammoth three yearly exercise’s idea originated in the 1990s acknowledging that governments across the world were being compared basis the spend on education rather than the achievements or learning outcomes.  Over time, PISA evolved as among the most important global exams. Recently, the tide has turned over to Asian, South-East Asian schools topping the charts with Europe and other developed economies including the US dropping consistently. This is where the consistent performance of Finland and its unique education system,  termed an ‘education miracle’ comes as a pleasant surprise.

The system is known to provide more emphasis on Quality and less on Competition and Control. Factor this – Finland doesn’t conduct standardised tests. It provides a comprehensive flexible education that ensures equity and inclusion in education through its publicly-funded school system.  This, without selecting, tracking or streaming students during their basic education until grade 9! Most children go to the nearby public school where kids from all walks of life learn together.  

Another key differentiator is the learning methodology. Teachers, customise their teaching approach as per each learner requirement. Teachers are also supported by other specialists like psychologists, special education teachers and management. Teaching is also considered as a highly valuable profession. Only 10 per cent of applications get through for the elementary teacher education program – a five-year master’s degree program. Remarkably, there aren’t school inspections conducted. So, while there are national quality standards, there are no evaluation tests pitting one school against the other. But, the reliance is on ‘intelligent accountability’, based on periodic self-evaluation of schools/education providers.

Though Finland is renowned for its comprehensive education system, it is even more remarkable that there are consistent efforts being put in to revisit the model and check the students’ preparedness in the future. It is proposed to introduce fresh initiatives to aid further in the globalisation of education – encouraging innovations, teacher professional development, ‘globalisation’ of education, increasing student physical activity etc.

The most remarkable take-away is the intent of the entire community to provide quality education – the school authorities, parents, students, government – all are actively engaged towards a vision which makes it so potent. This model is therefore, an important case study to the world, especially India. The keyword as mentioned is intelligent accountability.