University of Lapland

Faculty of Social Sciences

Let There Be No One Left Behind

Equality in services for marginalized groups in Finland and

Qubec school systems

Student name: Alexandre Malenfant

Student number:0434676

Supervisor:Anna Nikupeteri

Let There Be No One Left Behind

Introduction:

Finland has a pretty remarkable system of education. It has its flaws, like every other school

system in this world, but we can safely say that overall its doing fairly well. In the last 10 years,

Finnish students from under 15 year old have obtained really good results in the PISA

international test, even though results from 2012 show a decline in this regard. This essay will not

be about the PISA test, but one particular part of the results guided my research question. It has

been showed that the lowest performing students in the test had better results in comparision to

their peers from other countries than the higher scoring one against theirs. (Special needs, 1,

Finland, p.4). This means that a large part of the success of Finland in the PISA test has to be

related to the good results of students experiencing more difficulties than their peers. This got me

thinking about who could be those students experiencing difficulties and how to study them

specifically, but it proved to be impossible to do a research interlinking every less performing

child into a single group since difficulties can arise from numerous different factors that cant be

generalized into a stereotypical less performing child. I had to approach the question in a

different way by trying to correlate students performance within specific groups. So I decided to

define in a broad sense, which could be the groups experiencing more difficulties than the others.

Even though not every children in these groups are expected to have difficulties, it has been

showed from data that the following groups experience more difficulties in studies than the

national average in a lot of countries. I selected these three groups: Children with special needs,

immigrant children and Native children. Then it occured to me that in todays society those groups

are often marginalized. It made me thought about my own high school experiences in terms of

marginalization. One group that standed out was the intelligent people, les bolls as we say in

Qubec. I decided to add this group to my research making Equality in services for marginalized

groups in Finland and Qubec school systems as my research subject.

This essay will be divided into four sections : Children with special needs, Native children,

Immigrant children and Gifted Children. In each of these sections there will be three distinctive

part: Finland, Qubec and Similitudes and Differences. This essay will have, for each topic

discussed, three time perspectives: past, present and future. In each of these perspectives, I will

choose to put stresses on key aspects according to their relevance to the understanding of the

holistic perspective of a situation. At the end of the essay, I will give my stance on what can be

learned from Finland and on why this comparision can be useful for Qubec.

The concept of equality that will be used in this essay is the one that was defined by the SITRA,

the Finnish Innovation fund. In this text, the authors argues that the Finnish Welfare State is in

transition from an insurance mechanism, in which the poor, disabled and marginalized groups

are insured against non-employability, to a skill-based risk mitigation, in which everyone will be

supplied with capacitating services enabling them to acquire the capacities they need to surmount

the disruptions they face (Sabel 2011, 16). This facilitate the access to the labor market and lead

to higher employment rate and reduce the risk of falling into poverty, which has a positive impact

on the economy (Sabel 2011, 20). Equality is then defined as being an understanding of equality

as an obligation to give due regard to the needs of each, and so enable all to flourish (Sabel 2011,

19). By using the term marginalized and including the group of the gifted children in this

category, I will attempt to prove that this definition of equality should not be exclusively thought

in terms of the needs those disadvantaged, but should be extended to the needs of those who have

natural abilities. If the right learning support is not given to gifted children, they will not be able to

strenghten and maximise their abilities at their own rythm. By taking care of the needs of each,

societies should include excellence as a way of expanding the future societal benefit by

encouraging higher learning-level of education at a younger age for those in personal need of it.

The concept of stance used in here is one that I will briefly describe based on my understanding

of its significance in todays academic world. To me, having a stance, unlike the modern use of

the word opinion, shouldnt be justified by the mere stating of having one. To have a stance,

one has to be aware of himself, of difference in others, of his socio-cultural background and his

own personnal interest on the subject. One also has to listen and be good at it by listening to

opinions, to a variety and diversity of informations presented as facts and be able to discerned if

they truly are facts and also listen to his own sense of worthiness, relevance and care. Im a

Quebecer, Ive been in the education system for as long as I can remember and Im truly grateful

for the opportunity it gives me for the future of my life. I feel that, having been in the inside of this

system, it is normal for me to care about it and that, as a Quebecer, I have the right to express

myself about it. To me, taking a stance has to be based on the desire of being relevant. I feel

worthy of developing a stance and that is why I want to listen, for this essay, to what has been

said in various written resources, be it academic articles, newspapers articles or people expressing

their opinions on the Internet. At the end of this essay, having compared both school systems, I

will give my own stance on the following question ;

What should be learned from the Finnish school system relating to the topic of equality

of services for marginalized groups and how the government of Qubec should take

action in pursuing these goals for its own school system?

Also, to be honest and self-reflective about my own work, I need to put in perspective the limits

that have arisen throughout the writing of this essay and that have had an impact on my search for

academic litterature . I cant read Finnish.

1. Children with special needs

1.1 Finland

From an historical point of view, the Finnish special education class started in the 1920s and

1930s by the development of the IQ test. In the 1950s, school inspector were replaced by

psychological expert in the decision making process of transferring a child to special education

and the regular teacher were replaced by the special education teacher (Jauhiainen 1997, 10). In

the 1970s, the Finnish school system was reformed to the actual comprehensive school. This lead

to a paradigm change in the special education focus from the problem centred diagnostic to the

preventative measures (Jauhiainen 1997, 12). Since then, there has been a constant rise in the

numbers of students in need of special education.

To understand clearly what special education is about in Finland we have to get acquainted with

the notion of inclusive school and the two type of support offered. The inclusive school, as

developed by British academics Booth and Ainsow, is the actual ideology promoted by the Finish

Board of Education (Sabel 2011, 33). Its goals is to include every child into the mainstream class.

In the Finnish school system, special education is separated in two categories, the full-time and the

part-time special education. In part-time education, children are not considered disabled but in

need of short-term support in their learning. Special needs teachers can give support by teaching

them individually, in small-group, or by being in the regular classroom (Takala 2009, 1). On

average, these children receive two hours of special education per week. Those having severe

handicaps, are usually transferred to full-time special class or school (Kivirauma 2011, 5).

Early life difficulties in learning can be a burden to children progress and that is why Finland has

put emphasis on the necessity of testing children for a wide variety of cognitive deficits from as

early as 2 years old. They also value the collaboration between the test makers and the teachers

in understanding children difficulties (Sabel 2011, 5). This as lead to an increase of classification

of cognitive deficits and the support needed. Children with special needs in full-time support have

gone from 5% to 8.5% and part-time from 20 to 23% between 2000 and 2009 (Sabel 2011, 48).

Children in full-time support have an individualized education plan and children in part-time can

have one if its found necessary. The SWG, a multidisciplinary team which consist of school

personnel, meet eachother once or twice a month to evaluate progress made by children with

special needs according to their plan (Sabel 2011, 35).

Finland value trust and accountability in the decision making process of test makers and teachers

to send children in full-time special education. But the absence of mechanisms for generalizing

and exploring the organizational implications of the successes and failures of individuals schools

as lead to variations in full-time needs students between schools (Sabel 2011, 23).

1.2 Qubec:

The Qubec school system did not had much of any legislative obligation towards the

children with special needs before the 1960s. After the school system reform following the

Commission Parent, Qubec put in place regulations regarding the services that were to be

offered. Children were placed in segregated class and this had contributed to their marginalization,

as shown by a study of the MEQ (Ministry of Qubec Education) in 1978 (Ducharme 2007, 13).

In the 1990s, the MEQ made regulations towards the increase of the integration of children with

special needs in regular class. Criticism were made on the way this integration was made by

stating the lack of financial resources, lack of structure in services, lack of formation for the

teachers, etc. (Ducharme 2007, 14). In 1999, the MEQ created the Politique de ladaptation

scolaire which is the plan towards integration that is still in use today.

It is important to define the concept of integration. Integration is understood to be the partial

access to a regular class with the continuity of the services received outside of the class (Rousseau

2009, 4). The concept is hard to grasp, even for me, it is halfway through mainstreaming education,

which is to give access to regular class to children with special needs who seemed able to follow

regular class with reasonnable external help, and inclusion. Each Commission Scolaire, which

are groupings of schools under a single administrative entity in a given sector, have the mandate to

define the applications of this concept of integration. This leads to variety in the way it is

applied in schools all across Qubec (Bergeron 2011, 11).

A 2007 report by the, roughly translated, Commission of the people and youth rights, showed

that a lot of schools still do not offered the required educational services adapted to the needs and

capacity of the children with special needs who attends regular class. Lack of financial support

and of organizational model, as exemplified by the variety of application of the integration

concept, were stated as the main reasons for this lack of results. The Commission argued that there

was a need to put in perspective and reconsider the process of including children with special

needs in regular class due to these circumstances (Ducharme 2007, 90). In support of this

argument, an interesting study about the point of view of children with special needs showed that

the students interviewed prefered the tranquility of the external class since they could concentrate

more on their studies and that special needs teachers were more present to support them (Authier

2010, 11). Also, some parents expressed deep concerns about the integration of their children in

regular class. The mother in this excerpt, herself a teacher, state her mind on this subject: Im

saying no, no, no to their integration in regular class. I want my son and my daughter to

experience success, to be happy and not be rejected at the back of the class. Im a teacher, and

lets not fool ourselves, some are in the back of the class having difficulties. (Rousseau 2009,

10)

1.3 Similarities and differences

Both Finland and Qubec define their desire on inclusive-integrative class for children with

special needs in their respective regulations. The attributes given to the practice of inclusion are

diverse : create a sense of community, more interactions between students, develop morality and

empathy, understanding of differences, etc. (Ducharme 2007, 38). Both understand the necessity

of the early identification of special needs, even though Finland has been much more pro-active in

this domain (Sabel 2011, 33) Both are still using the pull-out model, which consists of having

special classes or school for the students who have severe learning disabilities. In both cases,

academics are asking for more research on special needs education, but on different topics. For

Finland, there is a need to understand how to generalize practices between schools in different

cities so that children with similar needs would be offered similar services. Since it is mandatory

in Finland for each university students in teaching programs to write a research thesis, the process

is accelarated. For Qubec, there is a need to understand the actual application of the integration

system and to know if it is actually producing any benefits or if it is harming the development of

the children with special needs.

As much as Finland and Qubec do not seem to be that far appart in their understanding and

legislations of inclusive-integrative ideology, there is a difference gap in the way they correlate

their legislations and practices. On one side, Finland has an effective inclusion system in which

teachers, the front line worker, are the key aspect. In Finland, teachers have to obtain a master

degree and the special education teacher has to obtain a master and do an extra year of specific

training. Each year, only 10 to 15% of candidates are accepted in the teaching program at the

university (Morales 2012, 118). In addition to being highly trained, teachers and special education

teachers are included in the SWG with other members of the school to share informations and

ideas about children with special needs. Qubec, on the other hand, have to put the future of its

integration system in perspective. The teachers in Qubec do not have the same social

recognition as it is the case in Finland. Students can apply to universities teaching programs fairly

easily in Qubec, as it is shown by the required Cote R, a grade based on the results in the

Cgep, which is a pre-university 2 years program. For example, medicine students needs a Cote

R of 33 and most teaching program 21 to 26, 21 being the most common and 25-26 for special

education program . It has been showed from studies that teachers do not receive adequate training

regarding the integration of children with special needs while attending these university courses

(Bergeron 2011, 18) There is also no organizational model of support like the SWG of Finland in

the Qubec regulations. In conclusion, let us remind ourselves that special needs of children

requires special services which requires more money. By integrating children with special needs,

without giving them the right support, the Qubec government saves money while still

maintaining the appearance of following rightfull ideologies.

2. Native children:

2.1 Finland:

Informations from as far as the 1910s, shows that Sami people were educated in schools in an

assimilation context. To modernized their ways of living, the school system took the children and

placed them in areas where the schools were, which was sometimes far from the Sami living areas.

As known classic Sami author Johan Turi state it : They are well educated, though, but at the

same time, they learn plenty of unnecessary information. The worst thing is that they adopt the

landowners nature to a great extent: they are obliged to go away from among the Sami when in

the best learning age and so they learn landowners life and fail to learn the Sami life. (Keskitalo

2012, 12). After the ravage of the Second World War, Sami children were left without education.

This has been harmfull to their ability to speak and read the languages and made it difficult for

them to teach their limited knowledge to their own children. Sami language officialy regained its

right to be taught in the mid-1970s, at the beginning of the comprehensive school in Finland. From

then, it has been made mandatory to be teached in every comprehensive school in the Sami

Domicile Area (Keskitalo 2012, 7). But cultural damages were profound and research suggest that

some parents do not want their children to learn the Sami language in fear that they would not

learn the Finnish language well enough (Keskitalo 2012 (2), 5).

Nowadays, 75% of the under-10-years-old Sami pupils live outside of the traditional areas

(Keskitalo 2012 (2), 3). This brings a challenge to the Finnish school system since it has to offer to

the Sami children teaching in their language even in the non-traditional areas. The actual

regulations and practices in place is a two-hour limitation of Sami language teaching in

non-traditional areas. Since there is a lack of Sami-speaking teachers, virtual teaching is

sometimes used for Sami children in these areas (Keskitalo 2012, 7). In addition to the lack of

teachers and limitation in the available time for teaching, criticim in the lack of quality in

education given to Sami-speaking children has been found numerous; lack of economic resources,

teachers loneliness and isolation, lack of qualification for the Sami-speaking teachers, strict

national Finnish school curriculum, lack of learning materials, etc. (Keskitalo 2013, 3)

It has been argued that some changes to the way Sami education is done would benefit them in the

future. For example, there should be more positive attitudes towards Sami people in higlighting

their culture all across Finland. There should be a distinctive Sami curriculum for Sami children in

traditional and non-traditional areas within realistic measures. The curriculum in place is currently

the regular Finnish curriculum with the addition of the use of the Sami language in teaching. A

distinctive Sami curriculum could be thought as; including elders in the cultural teaching process,

allowing flexible schedules for natural season based-learnings and giving more self-determination

and autonomy to the Sami people regarding the teaching process (Keskitalo 2012 (2), 5).

2.2 Qubec:

First of all, it is necessary in here to mention that it is Canada, and not Qubec, who makes

the regulations and financial decisions regarding the education of Native children. This limits the

spectrum of action possible for Qubec but do not render it inexistant. On a historical point of

view, Native children suffered from assimilation in schools during a long period of time, from

1879 to 1986. During this period, children were separated from their families and placed in

boarding schools where they suffered from the lost of their identity (Sbarrato 2005, 4). This lead,

in the mid-1970s, to an agreement with Canada giving the administration of the schools and

Commission Scolaire to the Native communities. In this agreement, Canada retained the right

on making the guidelines for the education program courses. So there is still, to this day, a lack of

self-determination regarding the content of the courses offered to Native children which generate a

widespread scpeticism on the values of formal education (Commission 2007, 16).

The pourcentage of urbanization of Native people in Qubec is less pronounced than in the rest of

Canada. In 2006, only 38,6% were living in urban areas, 36% in Native reserve and 25,4% in rural

areas (Richards 2011, 6). This has created diversity in the way the children are teached since

Native language teaching is only available in Native reserve and most generally only in the

primary education. A survey showed that 60% of Canadian Native students who lives in urban

areas stated to have learn nothing about their culture in regular schools. Also, the school grades of

those who are educated in the Native reserve are not good. Statistics shows that only 28% of the

Qubec Native children living in a reserve where able to start the secondary school at 12 years old,

the intended age to start secondary school (Lvesque 2011, 15). The dropout rate is incredibly

high, 43% of the Qubec Native population from 20 to 24 years old are dropout (Richards 2011, 2).

Those statistics are quite eloquent. Even more so since the youth population number is also

increasing at a rapid rate, almost twice as fast as the Canadian birth rate (Commission 2007, 31).

The quality of the teaching services that children receive is one of the reason for these alarming

numbers. There is a 20% difference in the school budget between the Qubec average school

budget and the Native reserve school budget, which is paid by the government of Canada. This is

reflecting on the salary of the teacher who are paid 15% less than the Qubec average (Beaulieu

2008, 14). In this perspective, it is hard for Native school to hire teachers and even more hard for

them to hire qualified teachers. The teachers hired have been found to be younger, less

experimented and being barely trained at all on the specificity of working in a reserve (Lvesque

2011, 15). A lot of them resign after some time (Commission 2007, 25).

Even though the situation is quite bad, there is some positive actions taken by the universities of

Qubec in collaboration with the Native schools. Some universities offers to give courses from the

inside of the reserve to teachers to further their qualifications (Commission 2007, 25).

2.3 Similarities and Differences:

There is a lot of similarities to be observed between the realities of both Finnish Sami and Qubec

Native population. The both were the target of assimilationist practices in their past and they both

have been able to keep their culture and values well alive. They live in different areas, be it

urbanized, rural or in reserve. They talk a diversity of language, there is 3 different Sami language

while there is 3 distinctive language families for the Native of Qubec (Education 2004, 4). In

both case, language is teached in the Sami Domicile area and in the Native reserve, even though it

is pretty rare in secondary education for Native of Qubec. They face adversity in similar ways, be

it the lack of resources, lack of teachers and their qualifications or differences in the quality of

Sami/Native related education depending on their location. But most importantly, they both are

subject to a restrictive curriculum made by their respective state that do not integrate the

specificity of their culture and practices. They share the common goal of self-determination and

would both like to take the control of their education destiny by implementing their own

curriculum. They want to create a link between their identity and the occidental, scientifc

knowledge of regular schools to be able to face the modernity of the world while retaining

self-confidence and pride in their identity (Beaulieu 2008, 49). In this perspective, LaFrance, an

Iroquoian (Native) academic, stated that occidental education has a hard time reaching the Native

children since its separating theories and experiences (Beaulieu 2008, 46). This excerpt from a

Inuit (Native) person exemplify the logic behind this thinking: Teaching traditional knowledge

does not mean that we want to bring back our children to an old traditional way of life. It means,

that when a snowmobile break in the middle of the winter tundra, they will know out to survive

(Commission 2007, 17).

There is also differences between the Sami and the Native. Even though, as said before, they both

live in a variety of location, statistics show significant difference in the urbanization process.

Close to 75% of Sami lives in urbanized areas compared to 38,6% of Native. Also, there is far

more Native in Qubec, from 80 000 upwards, compared to Sami in Finland, about 10 000

(Commission 2007, 8) & (Keskitalo 2012 (2), 2). This could be a reason on why some services

given by Finnish government seems to have more consideration towards the Sami people, such as

the 2-hour per week of Sami language education in non-traditional area, which is something that is

inexistant in Qubec. In addition to these divergent population numbers, the birth rate of Sami and

Native are going the opposite way. The fact that Native population of Qubec is increasing while

the services and competent teachers are becoming harder to find is going to be an even bigger

concern than it is right now and solutions will need to be found. But we need to remind ourselves

that the politicaly tense situation between Canada and the Native communities has a lot to do with

these problems. Still, the Qubec government should continue and expand their financial support

in initiatives such as the help provided by universities to the teachers in Native reserve.

3. Immigrant children

3.1 Finland:

Finland population had historically always been homogenous. In the last 25 years, there has

been a constant rise in the population of foreign-born and second generation immigrant. In 1990,

only 0,52% of the Finnish population was foreign-born. In 2012, it had increase to 5%. Those

immigrants mainly come from the neighbouring countries such as Russia, Estonia and Sweden.

But there is also refugees immigrants, mostly from Somalia. Most of the immigrants resides in

Helsinki (Sinkkonen 2014, 3). Since the increase in immigration has been quite recent, regulations

are still unprecise in the national school curriculum, but it still state specific support for immigrant

children: The instruction helps to support the formation of the pupils own cultural identity, and

his or her part in Finnish society and a globalizing world. The instruction also helps to promote

tolerance and intercultural understanding (Holm 2010, 5).

To integrate those immigrant student into the Finnish school system and to help their learn the

Finnish language and culture, the Finnish school system created the preparatory class. These class

can last for a maximum of 1 year and their main objective is to help student in their learning of the

Finnish language (Sinkkonen 2014, 4). Many immigrant student also have the possibilities to get

an Individual Educational Plan (IEP) (Grubb 2005, 44). Since the learning of native language has

been found to be helpful to the overall learning abilities of children and that Finland consider this

as a cultural right, the Finnish municipalities offers native language instruction in up to 50

languages across Finland, even though it is harder to obtain in small rural areas (Holm 2010, 6).

Despite the understanding of the necessity of providing specific services to immigrant children,

these children are often found to be underperforming as it was shown in the results of the PISA

test of 2012 (Sinkkonen 2014, 6). In exception from the Asian group, which even outperform the

average national results, immigrants results are below the average. The lowest level of achievment

is shown to come from the refugees group (Kilpi-Jakonen 2012, 12). These low level of

achievment are believed to be the results of many aspects of their lives, such as: their integration

into Finnish society and culture, their living communities, the difficulty to adapt to a different

educational system, their family socioeconomic background, etc. Because of these difficulties,

there is an overrepresentation of immigrant children in the special education class.

In a recent study, teachers who had already worked with immigrant children in their class brought

up ways of diversifying the teaching methods so that immigrant children could receive specifically

adequate learning services, these were: more lingual support, co-teaching with the preparatory

class teacher and assitant, integrate children as soon as possible in physical and musical class,

social integration in common projects, mixed group of ethnicity in preparatory class and the

quality of teaching (Sinkkonen 2014, 6).

3.2 Qubec:

The Charter of French Language created in 1977 made mandatory for every immigrant

children to be educated in a french language school, which was a big change since 80% of

immigrant children were previously teached English-speaking schools (McAndrew 2011, 9).This

was seen as necessary for the survival of the French language in a province in which

french-speakers are the dominant majority. It is a challenge for schools since up to 46% of these

immigrant children do not have french as their native language. The immigrant population of

Qubec represent 11,5% of the total population and 86,9% of them resides in Montral

(Breton-Charbonneau 2011, 19). There is also vast heterogeneity in the classroom. The five most

important countries of origin of immigrant (Algeria, China, France, Maroc, Roumanie) only

counts for 38% of the total immigrant population (McAndrew 2011, 7). Given the political

situation of Qubec, nationalism and the welcoming of immigrants are interlinked in a concept

called interculturalism. Its goal is to fosters unity through the creation of a common civic

culture in which French is established as the common language of society (Breton-Charbonneau

2011, 20).

Qubec uses preparatory class in the teaching of the immigrant children. It has been showed to be

effective in teaching the culture and realities of Qubec when there is a good ratio of

teachers\students. In rural areas, when there is not a sufficient amount of students in need of the

preparatory class, they are integrated into the regular class and given lingual support (McAndrew

2011, 13). Immigrant children are integrated in classes that do not required an extensive linguistic

knowledge, such as physical education or musical courses. Diverse ways of teaching have also

been put in practices, such as partial integration into the normal class andteam teaching with the

preparatory class teacher (McAndrew 2011, 14). Children in preparatory class are supposed to

attend it for a period of 10 months, but statistics estimated that up to 50% of the student can spend

two or three years in the preparatory class depending on their needs (Breton-Charbonneau 2011,

22). There is also a native language learning program, the PELO, which include the learning of 14

languages and is offered to the children of 7 Commission Scolaire in the Montral area. This

program is intended for the children who already master the french language and is also available

to any other children who would like to learn a new language (McAndrew 2011, 13). In addition,

the course Ethics and religious culture (ECR), which is about the diversity of religions and

culture in Qubec and in the world, has been implemented in the curriculum. PELO and ECR are

good initiatives to create a better understanding between Qubec-born children and immigrant

children. Even though the overall picture of immigrant education seems to be positive, their school

results are lower than the average. It has been shown that the Afro-American community are the

ones having the most difficulties, which could be related to difficult socio-economic situation

(McAndrew 2011, 19).

3.3 Similarities and Differences:

Finland and Qubec both value the learning of their specific languages, Finnish and French,

and their culture in the integration of the immigrant population. It is of primary importance to

them since they both are small island of a specific identity. Finland is a small country of 5,5

millions people, that has always been homogenous and that just recently started to increase their

immigration. Qubec is the only french-speaking province in Canada and in the entirety of

North-America. In both case, immigrants are located in the bigger cities, Helsinki and Montral.

Regional areas are still widely homogenous. Both of them use the preparatory class as a tool to

teach children their languages but also to teach and perpetuate their culture, as it can be

exemplified by the fact that the majority of the rest of the English-speaking provinces in Canada

do not feel the need to use the preparatory class method (McAndrew 2011, 13). In both cases, it

has been argued that teachers should have access to better preparation on the increasing diversity

of their class. Their universities teacher education programs do not offer sufficient skills to deal

with multicultural issues, even though there as been progress in the increase of awareness towards

the understanding of these realities (Sinkkonen 2014, 6). On a personnal note from the experience

of a friend who happens to be a teacher, I would like to add that the teachers in regional areas

should be trained to develop deeper knowledge on these subjects since they may eventually move

to the bigger cities areas where there is the most job opportunities. There is a need to homogenize

teacher education programs to better prepare the teacher to the realities they may face in their

future career. It as also been shown that low socioeconomic status of the parents can affect the

school results and integration of their children.

Finland and Qubec differs in the way they use the preparatory class. While in Finland the

maximum of time a child can be in the preparatory class is 1 year, in Qubec a child can stay there

for up to 3 years and it is far less common for schools to send them in special education. Even

though they both offer native language courses, Finland has a wider variety of language available,

50, than in Qubec, 14. This seems really surprising given the fact that Qubec has a larger and

more heterogenize immigrant population, but it can partly be explained by the fact that there is

private school offering tri-lingual teaching services. Still, children in regional areas do not have

access to those services (McAndrew 2011, 13). Qubec also offer more of a bilateral

understanding of cultural diveristy by the inclusion of courses like ECR, while Finland has been

criticized for not teaching their pupils about diversity, as it is shown by the fact that no mention is

made of the Roma, a long-time immigrant population, in school curriculum (Holm 2010, 5). Most

importantly, the real-life situations of immigrant children in schools are unsimilar between Finland

and Qubec. While in Finland and even in Helsinki, schools do not have a majority of immigrant

children in their class, in Montral there is 49 schools having more than 75% of their students as

immigrant children and even some schools at 100%. (Lapresse.ca,4)

4. Gifted children:

4.1 Finland:

Gifted children are described as showing sustained evidence of advanced capability relative

to their peers in general academic skills and/or in more specific domains (music, art, science, etc.)

to the extent that they need differentiated educational programming (Ruokonen 2005, 73). In a

study made of interviews of Finnish teachers, criterias of giftedness were stated to be : Creativity,

excellence, motivation, noticeable behaviour and special skill in some areas (Ruokonen 2005, 78).

It is also argued that gifted children should receive the same support in their studies than those

who face difficulties for the equality in services to be truly efficient (Tirri 2013, 5). In Finland, the

only regulation in place regarding the right of gifted children is that children have the possibility

to start their education at 6 years old instead of 7 seven years old (Ruokonen 2005, 87).

Gifted children are often found to be bored in class and their individual needs are not taken as

much care of as the needs of those facing difficulties. Teachers noted the fact that their class

groups were too large and that it was difficult to create multidimentsional learning environment

(Ruokonen 2005, 84). There is a need for them to be integrated in a more stimulating

environment where they could work creatively and solve problems (Ruokonen 2005, 75).

Academic contests and extra-curricular learning experiences can help to motivate the children in

giving them the possibility to interact with peers that are also gifted and motivated in their

learnings (Ruokonen 2005, 76).

Even though it has been found hard to provide gifted children an education adapted to their needs

in class, there is some extra-class initiatives that are offered to them. For example, these children

can do extra-curriculum intensive courses, competitions or summer camps in mathematics and

physics (Tirri 2013, 2). In Tampere, children could meet at the university on the weekend to gain

more advanced knowledge in mathematics and physics (Ruokonen 2005, 90).

There is a lack of special instruction in Finnish school curriculum regarding the needs of the gifted

children and it should be considered as a concern since it may delay and affect the potential of

these children.

4.2 Qubec:

There are so few scientific articles about children giftedness in Qubec that I instead turned

to journalistic articles which I found more interesting.

In Qubec there is, as well as in Finland, a system of acceleration of the studies which enabled

children to start their learning at 5 years old. There are no other regulations in the school

curriculum regarding the rights of gifted children. Children are found to be bored in class and it is

argued that some of them even experience difficulties in their school grades due to not being

motivated enough in their learnings (Lapresse.ca, 1). They can develop some behavioural

problems since they do not feel the need to concentrate on their learnings. Some children may fake

to be learning to not feel like outsiders in their class (Lapresse.ca, 3).

There is actually 2 schools that offer services to gifted children in Qubec, 1 for primary education

and 1 for secondary education. The places in these school are stricly limited and some children

that might have develop their potential in a faster rate than their peers, given that they received

good education, might be rejected on the basis of a failed test (Radio-Canada.ca). Limitating the

number of places is not a way of pursuing equality in services to gifted children based on their

individual needs. Some parents that cannot received good education for their children are forced to

quit their employment to give lessons at home (Lapresse.ca, 2).

4.3 Similarities and Differences

In both cases there is a need to implement clear regulations in school curriculum on how to

take care of the gifted children. Most initiatives are taken by the teachers and that is when they

have the time and resouces to actually put some practices in place. There is also a lack of scientific

research on the matter of gifted children. There is possibilities that the potential of those children

are not maximized and this could be negative for the future of both societies since gifted

individuals have often found themselves to be at the starting point of innovations in many fields.

As I mentionned in the introduction, by understanding equality in education as providing children

with the right learning services according to their personal needs, society would be the winner in

the long-run. I understand that taking care of the disadvantaged is the primary target of services in

schools and that this as to keep being this way, but gifted children should not be completely

ignored. By taking care of the potential of these children, they could become the experts or the

leaders of tommorow.

Finland seems to be more concerned about their gifted children since there is some extra-class

possibilities that are offered, while I could not find any of these alternatives in my readings on the

Qubec gifted children. In Finland, Nokia offers to gifted children of more than 15 years old a

chance to learn in special schools that they have created and some of these children are even able

to get jobs in the company afterwards (Tirri 2013, 8). Cooperation with private companies might

be an interesting way of approaching the question of gifted children.

5. My stance on the relevance of this essay

First of all, I would like to point the importance of the group form of this essay. It has been

shown that some groups do not have sufficient services given to them. I would argue that it might

be because they do not act as a unified entity. For example, in Qubec and Canada, even though

there is different group of Native people, they act as one single entity in their demands giving

them relevance and power on the political level. In Qubec, gifted children should not be seen as

individualized specific cases but as a group that requires specific regulations, such as is the case

for special needs children. Immigrant children should also be seen as a group which requires

specific services. Its not normal that the PELO program is only available to 7 Commission

scolaire and that those are all located in Montral areas. Regional children should have the same

right. Are they not immigrant as well? Different ways of providing them this service could be

thought of, such as videoconference with students or cooperation with the parents in allowing

them to obtain the teaching materials to give lessons at home.

On a wider perspective, this statement clearly summarize the conclusion of this essay: Tailored

(*Individualized) services may, in the short term, require more resources than standard mass

services but their impact in the long run is in most cases worth the investment. (Sabel 2011, 3).

There are a variety of resources that can be offered to improve tailored services in school, such as

the quality of the learning materials, extra classroom help, individualized plan, etc. But these are

aspects and not the foundation of the quality of those tailored services. In this regard, it is capital

to mention that ideologies on the planning of the educational system of Finland and Qubec are

differing. Finland value research, trust and accountability as its modus operandi for teachers

training and practices. Teachers are allowed to innovate in school practices and participate in their

peer community by figuring out the best way of approaching specific situations and giving

feedback on their results. By doing so, they create an extended web of knowledge that can benefit

to all teachers. On the other hand, Qubec and its strict school curriculum, lack of academic

research in education and low-level of requirement (Cote R) to become a teacher shows that it

value homogenize and non-situational practices in teaching instead of trust. Given the lack and

continuing decrease in the financing of education, I may argue that Qubec cannot expect the

same level of achivment and continuity of progress that Finland is experiencing towards the

equality and quality of services given to marginalized groups and most certainly to its students in

general. Qubec need a complete turnover in the importance given to education so that a sufficient

financial help could enable its school system to undergo a much needed ideological change. By

increasing the requirement (Cote R) to become a teacher and the academic research on education,

Qubec could pursue innovation and progress by putting trust and accountability in the teachers as

their own modus operandi, as it proved to be successful for Finland. But in Qubec, education is

not as much valued to society as it is in Finland. Its financial support suffers from it. Its a shame.

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Internet articles:

Tourner le dos aux surdous(Lapresse.ca,1)

http://www.lapresse.ca/actualites/education/200911/20/01-923592-tourner-le-dos-aux-surdoues.ph

p

La dtresse dun enfant surdou(Lapresse.ca,2)

http://www.lapresse.ca/le-soleil/actualites/education/201212/08/01-4602157-la-detresse-dun-enfan

t-surdoue.php?utm_categorieinterne=trafficdrivers&utm_contenuinterne=cyberpresse_vous_sugge

re_4602156_article_POS1

Au secours, mon enfant est surdou!(Lapresse.ca,3)

http://www.lapresse.ca/le-soleil/opinions/chroniqueurs/201212/02/01-4599902-au-secours-mon-en

fant-est-surdoue.php

Immigration: les coles ne font pas face au mme dfi(Lapresse.ca,4)

http://www.lapresse.ca/actualites/education/200810/05/01-26494-immigration-les-ecoles-ne-font-

pas-face-au-meme-defi.php

Le surdou connat aussi lchec scolaire

http://m.radio-canada.ca/nouvelles/societe/2015/03/06/004-surdoues-histoire-bob-douance.shtml