Finland! It’s the land Americans think of when they think of … the country that’s located next to Sweden. But did you know it has one the best education systems in the world? When its students took the standardized Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA) in 2009, they scored second in science, third in reading and sixth in math when compared to more than a half million students from around the world. How did the Finns get so smart?
According to the Smithsonian, it’s not by subjecting their teachers to intense competition with each other, as many politicians in the U.S. are pushing for:
“I think, in fact, teachers would tear off their shirts,” said Timo Heikkinen, a Helsinki principal with 24 years of teaching experience. “If you only measure the statistics, you miss the human aspect.”
Ah yes, the human aspect. In Finland, there are no mandated standardized tests, except for one at the end of high school. And don’t go thinking it’s because Finland doesn’t have to deal with immigrants; they do, in great numbers, with some schools more than half-filled with immigrant children from countries like Iraq, Somalia and Bangladesh. So, how do they do it?
For one, all the teachers in the publicly funded schools are pulled from a national pool, meaning a student in a poor area has just a good chance of getting a highly qualified teacher as one in a rich area does. Also, the people running the school system are educators, not politicians or business people. The result, according to Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD), is the smallest difference between the strongest students and weakest students in the world.
Another big factor in Finland’s success? Its low-income students aren’t coming to school as stressed, sick or hungry as they would in other countries:
Finland provides three years of maternity leave and subsidized day care to parents, and preschool for all 5-year-olds, where the emphasis is on play and socializing. In addition, the state subsidizes parents, paying them around 150 euros per month for every child until he or she turns 17. Ninety-seven percent of 6-year-olds attend public preschool, where children begin some academics. Schools provide food, medical care, counseling and taxi service if needed. Student health care is free.
Education doesn’t exist on an island. If a kid isn’t being fed enough, has emotional or medical problems, or is facing stressed-out, severely overworked parents at home, they aren’t going to do well in the classroom. And don’t think Finland’s stellar results are just due to its small size as compared to the United States–nearby Norway, with a similar demographic makeup and population as Finland, embraces a standardized test-happy philosophy similar to that of the United States and gets similarly middling results.
Overall, the Finns’ approach doesn’t seem too complicated: sufficiently fund schools, trust that educators know what they are doing, help kids have a stable home environment. Let’s just hope some of our politicians are paying attention before our kids really get left behind.
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Photo: Hulivili, Flickr, CC
