Why is Finland consistently ‘ahead (findings from PISA) ’ ?

Ranking of PISA Results2000 Finland HK

Reading 1 6

Mathematics 5 1

Science 4 3

2003Reading 1 10Mathematics 2 1Science 1 3

Visited various stakeholders in Oct 2007

• Board of Education• Teacher Union• The Association of

Local & Regional Authorities

• PISA expert• National Council of

School Evaluation• Institute of Educational

Leadership• Teacher Educators

• A Comprehensive School• A Upper Secondary School• A Vocational Institute• A Teacher Training School

Finland at a glance

-Total area 338,000 km2, Population 5.2 million (17 inhabitants / km2) (Annual growth rate 0,3 %)

- Independent since 1917, member of the EU since 1995

- Two official languages: Finnish 92 %, Swedish 6 %

-Religion: Lutheran (84 %), Orthodox (1 %)

-74,6 % of population (aged 25 to 64) have completed upper secondary or tertiary education. 33,2 % have university or other tertiary qualifications

-Immigrants: 2 % of population

-Main exports: electronics, metal and engineering, forest industry

-Working life: 86 % of women (aged 25-64) are employed outside the home.

-Average monthly earning (men) 2832 and (women) 2273 euros.

Helsinki

Jyvaskyla

1) Highly integrated Comprehensive School

2) Non-graded system for Upper Secondary

3) Interflow between Upper Sec and Voc Sch

THE EDUCATION SYSTEM OF FINLAND5

4

3

2

1

UNIVERSITIES

4

3

2

1

10

9

8

7

6

5

4

3

2

1

3

2

1

SCHOOL YEARS

AGE

PRE-PRIMARY EDUCATION

Compulsory

education

BASIC EDUCATION

16

15

14

13

12

11

10

9

8

7

6

WORK EXPERIENCE

WORKEXPERIENCE

SPECIALIST VOCATIONAL QUALIFICATIONS

FURTHER VOCATIONAL QUALIFICATIONS

3

2

1

POLYTECHNICS

VOCATIONALUPPER SECONDARYEDUCATION and TRAINING

GENERAL UPPERSECONDARY EDUCATION

1)

2)

3)

Free Tuition – from pre-school to PhDFree Meal

Free TransportationFree Books

Early identification of special needs

• School run by Municipals

• Teachers are highly respected– All master’s degree– Keen competition for studying education

(class teacher : 1 in 10; Math teacher: 4 in 10)– Long Holiday– No promotion, salary range: euro 2100-3300

per month

Learning Points and Insights

Societal and Cultural factors• Value mutual support and care “We would not

leave a friend behind”• trust and honour system• Relatively narrow social stratification• Equitable orientation in provision of education

opportunities e.g. no ability grouping/tracking; inclusive education; relatively low teacher salary differential

• Valuing education

• Bond for the nation; small nation with strong identity

• Widely shared values

• Strong family bond

• Resources very limited : woods and ____s

• Tax rate - 30%; with social security and retirement benefits

The Education system• Parliament – Ministry of Education – National

Board of Education / Local authorities• Free tuition (up to university level and beyond)

and free meals etc.• Early identification and support system for

development of each child• Trust on teacher professionalism and clear

expectation of teacher roles• Not based on direct monitoring at local authority

level (abolish the inspection system in early 90s)

• at school, no mandatory lesson observation for accountability purpose (school principals we met also say that they do not practice this)

• for teacher development, it is done through teacher collaboration at school level in planning of certain units or mutual professional support in cases were join effort is needed e.g. child progressing slowly

• Central curriculum framework with autonomy at local and teacher level

• Strong teacher trade union (salary and terms of service negotiations)– Professionalism strong– Non-political

School Curriculum• Central curriculum framework – National Board

of Education• Comprehensive School• Local authorities run the schools• Highly Inclusive

• Non-tracking Comprehensive School• Specialist teachers• Individual Study Plan for special needs students• No exit system level test for allocation to upper

secondary schools• Optional Grade 10

Flexible Upper Secondary School Curriculum• Student choices respected and supported• Non-graded with flexible pace• Choices in courses; cross streams• University track (general upper secondary schools)

and Vocational track (vocational upper secondary and training school)

• Close-to-work courses for vocational track• Interflow between the tracks now more open

Students• Reading – strong habit, female > male

(from observation) • Self-manage, confident, like to communicate and

ask questions, expectation on self, friendly S-T relationship

• Relatively ‘free’ class atmosphere, but quickly on-task

• Some worrying signs: choices of university courses?, adult smoking, littering etc.

Quality of Teacher• Academic requirement: master level, at least 5

years study programme• High social status (part of the tradition – societal

value on literacy and education e.g. literate before eligible for marriage as part of tradition)

• Teacher training school with heavy component on practicum

• Teacher development; in-service training; mentoring system

• Competitive teacher student intake; high popularity for teacher master degree courses

• Trust-based professionalism• teachers also form groups and meets regularly

voluntarily on a district basis and funds come from teacher members themselves; many journal/newsletters resulted from these teacher groups

• Teacher terms of service: limit on hours of work; relatively narrow salary range; limited promotion

• Terms and conditions of service (wages, retirement arrangements, maternity leave, hours worked and responsibilities) are collectively negotiated with the government and they seem to follow these stipulations faithfully

• Rental and cost of living: marriage helps(?)

• The norm of teacher operation in schools requires teachers to look and report on their students' progress under the national curriculum framework and they seem to have developed a built-in mechanism whereby 'poor' performing teachers would be an exception (We was told by the Education consultants of the local authorities that they know of only ONE case of teacher dismissal in recent years)

• parents' role and involvements play a very important role in safe-guarding their children's learning and minimize teacher non-performing behavior

• For quality assurance, the closest mechanism we know of is that they have a national evaluation centre to evaluate schools through cycles of sampling exercises. It is low-stake to the schools and no league-table etc. would be resulted. Results of school performances basing on a set of indicators would be feedback to schools concerned for their own considerations and improvements. There is apparently no systematic and mandatory requirements for follow-up work from the local authorities.

Child development• Early identification and support

– Mother-centres– Pre-school and grade1 and 2 identification

and support• Continuation of support

– Class teacher has to report cases of slow progress -> support and intervention (with Ts, specialist, external experts, parents and other pupil’s role)

• S expected to assume an independent role when progress to adulthood

Classroom Learning and Teaching• Class size (average 18) and School size• SE teacher and teacher assistant to cater SEN• Positive discrimination• Variation in pedagogy• Teacher variation seemed high (from

observation e.g. Music --- Biology)• Student initiatives and participation seemed high

Supportive and Inclusive Schools• Free Provision; free tuition, meal, textbook and

transportation• Close student-teacher relation• Early recognition and intervention; more

resources/support for grade 1 and 2 pupils• Resources directed to schools on need • Egalitarian, inclusive by nature• Schools owning students’ problems

Class size (average 18)• national average - Some may be down to 5 in

remote areas, but a little bit below 20 seemed to be the norm in city comprehensive schools; Upper secondary schools would have very varied sized depending on the courses

• From our observation in the comprehensive classrooms, the way they communicate, addressing each other, the on-task behavior for some students and at the same time the easiness of off-task students etc. suggested that T-S trust were given mutually and this seemed quite normal.

• People we met also suggest conducive T-S relationship in general

• There are courses preparing teachers to be special education teachers in a school setting within the 5 years of teacher preparation.

• There are special education schools for severe SEN students not fit for inclusive arrangements. There should be even more specialist training beyond the 5-years teacher preparation but we have to check.

• There should be some general module for SEN in the T preparation programme for all teachers, but we do not have the details

Flexible curriculum• All schools are equal in terms of opportunities

offered• Follow the same curricula (The Finnish National

Core Curricula for Basic Education, and for Upper Secondary Schools)

• Competition among schools not a concern

- S and parents’ choices respected e.g. when students leave grade 9 (or grade 10 which is optional), they choose their upper secondary schools (T’s advice and counseling given)- The vocational path would have clear pathways because the work-place linkage and student enrolment in relevant courses are mostly explicitly made.- For university, student have a lot of choices (since basing only one elective subject in the matriculation exam)

• for status, people we ask seemed to have low concern of 'status difference‘

• Students are all given choices in the education system very early on, and they are all given full information on the implication of these choices– conjecture :

• these helped minimized the question of 'equitable education outcome’

• And low social stratification is part of their culture and helps

Why quality output? (a suggested interpretation)

• Culture/values and norm -> choices -> ownership to effort & consequences

• Small nation; history• Limited resources and challenging environment -

impact on goal at national and individual level• Value on each individual ->

– Early identification and support to minors– Impact on frame of choices and behavior in general

e.g. non-tracking; inclusive; social redistribution

• Trust and mechanism adopted• Professionalism with compatible rules and

mechanism ‘design’– T’s role and expectations– Information generation and revelation – S and

parents• Choices and consequences• Principles and practices in learning – less

constrained e.g. motivational concerns -proactive and preventive in learner development

• Incentive more ‘learning neutral’ e.g. absence of exit tests in comprehensive stage

• Some thoughts:– What social conditions would ‘free’ learners

from disincentive elements to learning?– What conditions are conducive to learning?– The role of self and how one view ‘oneself’– Personal goal – beliefs on effort and ability,

mediated through capacity and strategies, and interacts with experiences for learning-loop, and changing prior conceptions and beliefs

– Teacher etc as facilitators --- path-finder