Transcript Education in Finland “Why Finnish kids are so smart?”

Education in Finland
“Why Finnish kids are so
smart?”
Virpi Sanders
FFFC April 6th, 2009
Content
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Pisa research
Background for Finnish PISA success
History of education in Finland
Education and the Finnish society
Education Development projects
Science, Math, Literacy and Teacher
training
• Future of Education in Finland
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PISA in a nutshell =
Programme for International
Student Assessment
Collaborative project of the OECD countries
(Organization for Economic Co-operation
and Development). The project came into
being when there arose a need to develop
indicators for cross-national comparisons
in education. In 2006 there were 57
participating countries and 31 of them
were OECD-countries.
Finland has participated each time; 2000,
2003 and 2006
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Background for Finnish
PISA success
• Equal educational opportunities
• An integrated nine-year structure intended for the entire age
group
• The education system is flexible and its administration is based
on intense delegation and provision of support
• Co-operation between different levels of administration,
schools and other sectors of society
• Focused on individual support for pupils’ learning and well-being
and relevant guidelines
• Focused on individual support for pupils’ learning and well-being
and relevant guidelines
• Master degree required
• Pupils active involvement and interaction with teachers and
fellow pupils. Pupils process and interpret the information that
they absorb on the basis of their prior knowledge structures.
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History of Education
* The Finnish school system has been intentionally
developed towards the comprehensive model,
which guarantees everybody equal opportunities
* Education reforms 1964 and 1968
* The parallel school system would be replaced by
national nine-year basic education. In practice,
the renewal was realized in Finland step by step
between 1972 and 1977
* In 1985 the ability group system was abolished so
that eligibility to further studies would be open
to everyone.
* 1990s: the role of central administration
diminished
* National Core Curriculum for Basic Education was
introduced as from 16th January 2004
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Education and the Finnish
society
• An education system whose characteristics
consist of uniformity, free education, school
meals and special education by using the principle
of inclusion.
• Small differences : the definition of admission
areas, the lack of ranking lists, the even
distribution of good teachers between schools.
• 73 % of the 25-64-year olds have at least gained
a certificate from upper secondary level and 33 %
(the highest in the EU) have had a university or
corresponding education.
• Slightly over 1% does not receive a comprehensive
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Science teaching and
curriculum
• The revised National Core Curriculum pays more
attention to knowledge structures of different
natural sciences, as well as ways of acquiring
information and their applications. The aim is to
achieve in-depth understanding of knowledge by
means of exploratory learning. According to the
National Core Curriculum, instruction in natural
sciences is characterized by a problem-based
approach and experiential working methods. In
terms of natural sciences, the objectives, core
contents and the description of good competence
set out within the curriculum emphasize a diverse
learning environment.
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Mathematics and
curriculum
• The guidelines given by the expert group on
mathematics established in 1992:
• Mathematics teaching would strive after goaldirected studying, classification of mathematical
information, emphasizing acquisition of
mathematical knowledge and use, problem solving
and paying special attention to learning styles.
Many of these recommendations and principles
were included in the 1994 framework curriculum
for mathematics.
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Teacher Training
• Competent teachers
• Master degree required for class
teacher or subject teacher post
• Lack of Math and Science teachers >
in-service and conversion training
• Continuing teacher training
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Literacy in Finland
• High esteem of reading in Finnish culture
• Large and dense network of public library
• The social status of mothers as an
important role-models for girls
• Foreign films on TV provided with Finnish
sub-titles instead of dubbing
• Net-surfing, SMS, role games
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Future of Education
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Teachers professional skills
Developing new teaching methods
Guaranteed sufficient resources
Benchmarking
Pupils well-being
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Sources and Contact
info:
Sources of Information:
http://www.pisa.oecd.org/
http://www.pisa2006.helsinki.fi/
http://www.oph.fi/english/
http://ec.europa.eu/education/programmes/newprog
/index_en.html
VIRPI SANDERS:
[email protected]
954 770 8370
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