Pasi Sahlberg part 1 – A Dream Finnish Line

Today I had the fortune to spend two hours listening to Pasi Sahlberg talk about education.

He didn’t rant, he didn’t rave, in fact he didn’t even sound impassioned – here just talked sense.  He didn’t have notes or a crib sheet, and he didn’t have a political agenda – he just spoke about something he understands well.  It was really quite something.

The talk covered so many very interesting points that I’m breaking it up into a number of shorter blogs to make it digestible.

Here I will just outline some facts about Finland’s education system, without commentary, and leave it to you to think about and comment on them.

Facts About The Finnish Education System

• All education is 100% publicly funded in Finland.
• All school materials (books, pencils, etc) are provided and are free.
• Dental and health care is free.
• Travel to and from school is free.
• Compulsory schooling starts the year the child turns 7 years old.
• Students have the same teacher from year 1 to year 6, then specialist teachers for the final 3 years.
• There is no testing until children are 15 years old.
• Only the core curricula are designed for nationwide application. They leave freedom for local education authorities to arrange teaching in the best way suited to local circumstances.
• There are no national standards.
• Every child is fed a hot 3 course meal every day at school.
• Every school has a doctor, a nurse, and a counsellor on site.
• Teachers have less student contact time and more teacher-teacher contact time.
• The schools day is shorter.
• School is 150 days per year.
• All teachers have a masters degree and a further teaching qualification.
• There are no school inspections in Finland.

Finland is consistently in the top 5 countries in the PISA (Programme for International Student Assessment) lists.  These are the December 2010 figures:

Makes you think, doesn’t it.

Read Part Two Here.

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Sources:

Pasi Sahlber’s talk at Bayfield School, Auckland, NZ, 5th October 2012.

http://www.minedu.fi/pisa/2009.html?lang=en

http://www.minedu.fi/pisa/taustaa.html?lang=en

http://www.minedu.fi/pisa/piirteita.html?lang=en

http://www.oecd.org/edu/EAG2012%20-%20Key%20Facts%20-%20Finland.pdf

http://www.salon.com/2011/07/18/tony_wagner_finland/