Amarendra Kumar Mishra
United Nations ranks Finland education system No #1 in the world, Newsweek ranks Finland at the top position, and the USA at 26th position. PISA International Assessment System, arguably the toughest assessment in the world ranked Finland No #1.
Students from Finland outperform peers in as many as 43 other nations – including the United States, Germany and Japan – in Mathematics, Science and reading skills. Educational researchers are studying the system to see why the students are doing so well.
The Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA) is a worldwide evaluation of 15-year-old school pupils’ scholastic performance, performed first in 2000 and repeated every three years. Conducted by Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD), this test is electronically delivered across 35 countries, including Denmark, Korea, China and Iceland. In the inception year 2000, it declared Finland the winner, drawing world attention to the Finns system. Since then, in all the four PISA tests held, Finland finished among the top five.
It is said, what has helped Finland consistently come out on the top, springs directly from education policies set in motion some 45 years ago. This system is rooted in strong salient features. A system, where students study for less number of hours per day. Typically, students have two – three classes, attend school for sometimes 2-3 hours a day. Sometimes, they may come to school at 11am and leave at 3pm, having attended their chosen classes in a day. Students have the autonomy to decide in how much time they want to finish the courses, and within this framework there is complete freedom.
In primary school, students often stay with the same teacher for a long time, so that teaching patterns get well established. Small class sizes ensure that there is one on one attention. A free system of education for all, cost of tuition, meals, learning material, transportation, books all centrally funded. When student turn seven, they attend a compulsory free education which is irrespective of socio economic and cultural backgrounds.
A system that is flexible and open. Use of Moodle and Online systems where students can share projects together, share problems and challenges together. The system provides the ability to integrate current requirements like courses in social media marketing within curriculum. In senior school, nearly 45% choose vocational stream over academics. This policy target was set around two decades ago, to help the economic growth of the country though skills development. The system is flexible so that after vocational studies, one can go back to university or to mainstream academics.
A system, where teachers are hardly ever evaluated. The biggest contributor in the system is the backbone of the teacher education. It is called the research based teacher education system where students keenly aspire to be teachers. Teaching profession is well respected. The number of seats available in teaching colleges is far less than the number of aspiring students. Aspiring teachers, spend considerable time, observation classes conducted by veteran teachers. Veterans are often requested to come back and teach after many years of retirement.
In a system where there is no coercion, no evaluation and assessment, the key question is then, how do students perform so well? Early detection mechanisms, such as periodic individualised assessments of students by several groups of teachers, allow educators to identify struggling students and offer them the necessary support early on, before they become stuck and cannot continue their education at the same pace as their peers.
What is their motivation towards learning? The teachers focus on three simple questions: What did you see? How can you do it differently? What are your thoughts about it? These three questions have helped students think, learn and innovate.
Excellence is a journey not a destination. But, Finns have managed to make excellence in education both a journey as well as a destination.
Why & How? Let’s steal a look in to the system in depth
Less is more:They believe it. They live by it. Their houses are not larger than what they need in which to comfortably live. They do not buy or over consume. They live simply and humbly. They don’t feel the need to have 300 types of cereal to choose from when 10 will do. The women wear less make-up. The men don’t have giant trucks (or any vehicles at all, really). Instead of buying hundreds of cheap articles of clothing the Finns buy a few expensive items of high quality that will last for decades rather than months. They truly believe and live by the mentality of less is more.
Conversely in India we truly believe “more is more” and we constantly desire and pursue more in all areas of our lives. We are obsessed with all things new, shiny and exciting and are constantly wanting to upgrade our lives. Out with the old in with the new! This mentality of “more is more” creeps into all areas of our lives and it confuses and stifles our education system.
We can’t even stick to ONE philosophy of education long enough to see if it actually works. We are constantly trying new methods, ideas and initiatives haphazardly without much thought, responding less to real research outcomes but more to Government’s whims . We keep adding more and more to our plates without removing any of the past ideas. Currently we believe “more” is the answer to all of our education problems- everything can be solved with MORE classes, longer days, MORE homework, MORE assignments, MORE pressure, MORE content, MORE meetings, MORE after school tutoring, and of course MORE testing! All this is creating MORE burnt out teachers, MORE stressed out students and MORE frustration.
Finland on the other hand believes that less is more. This is exemplified in several ways for both teachers and students: Less Formal Schooling = More Options, Less Time in School = More Rest, Fewer Instruction Hours = More Planning Time, Fewer Teachers = More Consistency and Care, Fewer Accepted Applicants= More Confidence in Teachers,Fewer Classes= More Breaks, Less Testing = More Learning, Fewer Topics = More Depth, Less Homework = More Participation, Fewer Students = More Individual Attention and Less Structure = More Trust.
(The author is Principal KC Public School, Jammu)
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