It's a brief summary of Finland education system.

1. {
FINLAND
EDUCATION
SYSTEM
The story of transition on the basis of study & visit
to Finnish Embassy - Rovin Pushp

2. 0 Early childhood education and care
#Pre primary education (6 year olds)
1 Primary education –single structure (7-16 years)
2 Lower secondary education/vocational institutions
3 Upper secondary education/further vocational
education- specialization/expertise
4 Post-secondary non-tertiary education
6 Bachelor’s or equivalent
7 Master’s or equivalent
8 Doctoral or equivalent
CLASSIFICATION

3.  Acknowledge the importance of nutrition and rest
 Respect for each child’s individuality
 Holistic development
 Lifelong learning
 High class kinder garden and nursery education considered important for sowing seeds
of life long learning
 Progress of self includes progress of society
 Less is more
 Realizes significance of personal values like empathy, leadership skills, respecting
diversity, inter-personal and intra-personal skills
 Encourages inter-disciplinary learning to equip children for changes in the society and
the world
 Focus on developing personal competencies and values instead of passing on
information
 ‘Whatever it takes’ – principle for bringing change
 If you only measure the statistics, you miss the human part
 No ranking, no competition amongst students
 Education is not only about what happens in schools; parent engagement
Guiding principles

4.  Shorter history (religious influences, inequality, status mattered a lot, low learning levels, poor
quality of education etc.)
 Change was brought in phases – 1970s to now (they realized their system was mediocre and they
wanted to do something about it)
 Work begun with analysing problems and preparing key policies e.g national curriculum guidelines,
mandatory 1-9 education (1972-79), teacher training etc.
 1979 onwards – teachers same respect as doctors or lawyers, this changed the quality of people
coming to education
 Change in pre-service education
 Focus on decentralization, improve teacher autonomy and efficiency
 Educational activities by educational service providers - Guided by legislature and national core
curricula
 Funds given to municipal body (local authorities decide what is to be done and how under the given
framework), municipal body generally delegates decision making power
 Focus on developing 3 types of capital – human, decisional, social
 Every school gets quality teachers (similar quality – 8 universities)
 Education is free and funded by the government. Beyond upper secondary level- study grants and
loans. Loans and financial aids for vocational education as well. Only adult education is not funded.
 Synergy between government and educational institutions/people.
 Teachers are selected from best qualified youth in the country
 5 year master degree required to teach. (only 8 universities conduct these courses).
 Continuing teacher education
Key features- policy and administration

5.  Schools have the right to provide educational services according to their own
administrative arrangements and vision
 Planning with desired outcomes in mind
 Compulsory basic education
 No school inspectors
 Short time periods for learning (max 20 hours per week)
 Assessment - part of daily school work
 All children have to learn two foreign languages apart from Finnish
 After basic education, students can choose general upper secondary or
vocational (90% students turn up for either of the two)
 Vocational education and training is organized in cooperation with the world of
work
 Heavy subsidies and maternity/paternity leaves (3 years)
 Books given to parents to make them aware about child development
Key features – policy and administration

6.  What is competition? How it should reflect in
educational spaces?
 Diversity affecting attitudes and behaviour of parents?
 Role of ‘challenge’ in education
 How do we see fun and creativity in education?
 Can we look for a less expensive model?
 Please consider India’s current scenario – human
resources, funds, sociological implications, political
issues, nature and types of academicians, etc.
 National and global contribution – this kind of
education!
Limitations & Concerns before we look to implement

7.  Factory model vs Personalized curriculum
 Eliminate centralised management & monitoring
 Eliminate centralised in-service teacher training
 Encourage Interdisciplinary learning for students
 Listing skills needed for present and future; training & educating our students
accordingly (preparing a curriculum guideline)
 Start research institutes in education
 Improve the intake criteria and quality of pre-service education according to our
context
 Creating national discourse on quality education and showing respect to teachers
through multiple modes
 Two year online course and examination (those who qualify- to be recognised as
efficient teachers; doctorate in education can be given). Proper autonomy given to head
teachers/teachers who qualify this test (civil society and parents act as
inspectors/observers)
 Vocational education/apprenticeship education
 ECE (research) and training/orientation of parents, improve ECE centers
What is it that we can choose to adapt/adopt?