071# Why Finland May be the Best in The World for Education.pptx
1. 071# Why Finland May be the Best in The World
for Education
7 REASONS
2. Spending More Money on Education
Spending more money on Education is doesn’t mean best result!
1. US
2. NORWAY
3. COLOMBIA
4. BRAZIL
5. SOUTH KOREA
6. CHINA
ARE SPENDING A LOT OF MONEY ON EDUCATION. HOWEVER, FINNISH
SPENDS 5% OF ITS GDP ON EDUCATION WHICH IS AROUND $10000!
3. WHY FINNISH EDUCATION IS THE BEST?
Finland’s innovative approaches to education include
reducing standardized testing, improving equity across the
spectrum, and supporting teachers. Here are seven reasons
Finland may be the best country in the world for education:
4. 1: SCHOOL STARTS LATE
Although the Finnish school day starts around the same time as it does in any
other country, the same thing can’t be said about elementary school.
In Finland, students do not begin formal schooling until they’re 7 years old. Instead
they spend ages 3-6 in preschool, and because preschool is required by law in
Finland, this means that 97% of students aged three to six are enrolled in school.
In comparison, only four out of ten US 4-year-olds were enrolled in publicly funded
preschool programs, according to the Department of Education.
5. 2: All children are included regardless of ability
According to English, the Finns have “designed an educational system to
optimize learning for every child, regardless of a student’s educational
needs.”
All Finnish schools have a full-time special education teacher who works
part-time with about 23% of students, as well as a group of staff that meet
bi-weekly to discuss students’ comportment in class, which includes the
principal, the school nurse, the special education teacher, the school
psychologist, a social worker and the classroom teachers.
6. 3: Teachers are treated like royalty
According to multiple sources, Finnish teachers are some of the best treated
around the world. Not only are Finnish teachers paid more money than American
ones on average, they also work nearly half as many hours.
In the classroom, teachers are free from inspections — and have been since the
1990s — and are not required to prepare students for standardized testing, giving
them more flexibility to teach students the lessons they deem appropriate,
That said, becoming a teacher in Finland is a quite competitive process, with only
7% of applicants accepted to the country’s top teaching program in Helsinki in
2015.
7. 4: Fewer Tests
Finnish students only have to take one standardized test throughout their
adolescence, and it’s not graded by a computer, but by educators themselves.
Called the National Matriculation Examination, the exam is taken at age 16, and
topics “span across subject areas and often require multi-disciplinary knowledge
and skills,” The Washington Post reports.
Taking the focus off of testing and putting it on learning has had positive
developmental effects on students, including critical thinking skills, without taking
a toll on Finnish students’ abilities to fare well on the international Programme for
International Student Assessment (PISA), which is given across 40 developed
countries,
8. 5: More Recess
Finnish schools mandate that all primary school students have 15 minutes of
recess for every 45 minutes of class. According to a study by Stanford researchers,
increasing time spent out of the classroom actually has the effect of creating a
positive learning environment for all students.
“Positive school climate has been linked to a host of favorable student outcomes,
from attendance to achievement,” the researchers found.
On top of their plentiful recess time, Finnish students kids are also not
overburdened with homework after school,spending about one-third as much time
on after-school homework activities, on average.
9. 6: It's the Most equitable School system in the World
There are no private schools, and students of different abilities are not separated
into educational levels in class, The Independent reports.
This has given Finland the distinction of being the most equitable school system in
the world, with the smallest gap between its lowest- and highest-achieving pupils,
according to the World Economic Forum’s Global Competitiveness Report.
“The result is that a Finnish child has a good shot at getting the same quality
education no matter whether he or she lives in a rural village or a university town,”
10. 7: They Mind the Gender Gap
Where many developing countries have big gender gaps between male and female
students when it comes to science education, with male students generally
achieving higher in this field, Finland is bucking the trend.
In fact, according to the OECD, Organization of Economic Cooperation and
Development Finland is the only developed country where girls are outpacing boys
in science scores overall and where the majority of top-performing science
students are girls, as well.
Educators in Finland attribute this to the country’s generous maternity leave
policies, gender equality policies across the board, and guidelines for ensuring
female representation in science.
