Do you know what country does persistently rate among the best in the world in education? Finland. Apparently, That's right.
The small Nordic country is best known for giving the world Nokia phones, Angry birds and Awful heavy metal music is actually a captain in world education. Not only does Finland have the highest high school graduation rate in Europe but on International tests, Finish students almost rank regularly near the top in Reading, Math and Science. This is not achieved by overloading kids with endless hours of homework.
So let’s come to the topic, why does Finland have the smartest educational system on earth?
Here are the some of the reasons that set Finland apart,
No child gets left behind
Finland government provides all families especially low-income families with a vast social safety. The Finish government sends a box of supplies to every family with a newborn child too and since then, childcare is heavily subsidised, letting most families send their children to some form of early childhood education. Finland's public schools also focus on making sure that every student achieves basic knowledge in the subjects that they study. Where as in some other countries, students and school districts are expected to compete against other students and institutions. As a consequence, this system, inevitably creating a system of winners and losers, therefore this can be one of the reasons why the achievement gap that exists between the rich and poor in American schools is smaller in Finland than anywhere else in the world.
They are practical!
Finnish children don't even begin school until they turn 7 and once they're in school they get almost three times the amount of recess time as American students. They are barely assigned homework until 7 and they almost never take standardised tests.
Actually, Finnish students are only required to take one standardised test and that's not until the end of high school.
Teachers are actually respected like other major professions
Happening to be a teacher is not easy in Finland. There are only 8 universities that offer the Masters programmes required to get a teaching credential and only one in ten applicants get accepted. So it is not a surprise that teachers in Finland receive nearly the same level of respect as doctors and lawyers. Moreover, Finnish teachers only spend nearly four hours a day in the classroom
and take second hours a week for professional development. They can also do not have to deal with merit pay which has been the cause behind many high profile cases in many other countries.
They believe that less is more.
Finland people believe that when it comes to education, patience, hands-on learning and concentrating on problem-solving are more significant than listening to lectures, mindless test preparations and memorization of information that students will perhaps forget as soon as they leave the exam room. Isn’t it? Also, Finnish teachers don't race through lessons to stuff as much information as possible into students heads so that the students can then spit the same back out on a standardised test.
Despite that, they give priority to moving slowly and taking as much time as necessary to thoroughly discover fewer topics but in much greater depth.
There's plenty of ways to learn from countries like Finland that do things very differently yet promisingly with proven track record of achieving better results. I believe some things have to be implemented in every country because schooling is a concept that should offer a great path to students but not scary thoughts.
Source 1: Reders Digest
Source 2: TopTenz
Source 3: FillingmyMap
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