Education system in Finland- something to aim for

[Parker231]

Something many countries should aspire to. Formal schooling starts at age seven, teachers are required to have a Masters, no standardised testing and homework is at an average of half an hour a day. Schools in Finland are ranked amongst the top in the world.

The biggest difference is no private schools, no two tier education system.

This must make huge difference. Those rich politicians have to put more money into state schools. But never going to happen here.

I live in Finland and have a child in 5th grade (and another in nursery) here so I have experience of primary school here.

Some clarification on things mentioned in the thread, firstly when my daughter was in nursery it was definitely not the equivalent of reception/year 1 like someone on the thread said. It was all play and then just a little bit of 'pencil work' in the last year (learning how to hold and use a pencil), they didn't even learn the alphabet. Then preschool at 6 they spent the year focusing on a different letter of the alphabet each week, and a different number up to 20 each week, only towards the end of the year did they start to learn syllables which is the first step towards reading in Finnish. I would say preschool was more like reception in the UK. My son is at nursery now and it has changed since my daughter's day as in they are doing things in small groups like teddy bear maths, and language rich world which I guess is maths and literacy at some level.
They then start learning properly in 1st grade but just 4 hours a day (after school club is available and cheap for after that but not every area offers before school club, mine doesn't) to begin with, and that increases each year, now in 5th grade she does three 6 hour days, one 4 hour and one 5 hour.

They do a lot of exams throughout the school year and they get homework every day, now in 5th grade it can be quite a lot of homework. In upper school the workload is supposed to be quite a bit more and in Lukio (high school) it can be very heavy (not everyone goes to Lukio, about half go to vocational high school, some do joint vocational and Lukio)

One of the things considered to help is the free hot lunch for every child as hungry children don't learn as well. There's no option for packed lunches, everyone eats a hot healthy lunch and it helps them learn. Frequent breaks is supposed to help too.

PISA results have gone downhill, they started going downhill when Finland started modernising the system, to copy other countries. It was at its best when it was old fashioned sit down at desks in rows and listen to the teacher learning. People in my age group (mid to late 30s) were of the age that had the good teaching and it shows, especially in languages. Reading levels are going downhill, considered likely due to phones and the internet and suchlike but reading is still very popular, and still high levels of people reading actual newspapers.

Tax is not as high as a person earlier in the thread made out, you don't pay those tax levels on all your income and income tax is more progressive than UK tax so can be as low as 1% though municipal tax isn't (but there's a higher threshold before you pay it, I don't think I paid any municipal tax last year) and there's no council tax or ridiculously high childcare costs.

But Finland doesn’t have to fund other things. What money does it spend on its armed forces? This might change of course. What about health? No NHS that replicates the UK government spend. It’s got 5.5 million people snd we have 67 million. That brings inevitable challenges for the uk.

What do Finnish parents do when DC want to read or appear very numerate before 6 years old? Do they not give them books and encourage their talents? Are the children not curious? Do they never do number work with their children? Surely a bright child would want to know more?

It’s interesting that DC achieved more when sitting at desks in rows. I cannot remember a time when we had that.Not even when I was at primary school in the 60s. It’s very Singapore style! So maybe parents here would prefer the old Finnish style of teaching as that produces the best results? I suspect not!

I should imagine Finland spends quite a lot on defence. It has a massive border with Russia (yikes) and has a history of dealing with aggressive invasive countries--not just Russia but also Sweden. Finland has compulsory national service, I believe, and is one of the few countries where young people mostly do actually do the national service without moaning about it (much) or trying to duck out of it!

Yet only 5 Nobel prize winners....

For those asking about defence spending, Finland can mobilise more boots in the ground than the UK. Part if this will be standing army, trained reserves.
Despite being a high tax country DIL pays less tax than she did working in a similar role for a UK local authority. They also pay less rent for a larger flat in a major city than they did in a Midlands city I the UK.
Every society has it's issues, none are perfect but there are plenty of things in various other societies we would benefit from following. I don't believe low tax rates are one of them.

Finland spends a similar level (as a proportion of GDP) to the UK on defence, and is increasing it this year (for obvious reasons). And yes, national service, that is fairly popular. Health spending is less, its a different system here where most people are covered by occupational health (which is mainly for preventative stuff and work related stuff, but its good and quick), private healthcare is fairly popular and not that expensive, but there's still public healthcare too that's in better shape than the NHS right now even though its also struggling badly with not enough nursing staff and recovering from the pandemic (but at least they didn't stop doing face to face GP appointments here even during the worst of it). Finland has a lot to fund, comprehensive social welfare system, universities (no fees here, university is free for all, and students get a stipend from the government so that's more to fund), childcare is heavily subsidised so that requires more funding. Smaller population means smaller tax income (though perhaps Finland is a bit better at getting tax from its richer residents and big companies than the UK is), its all relative.

Interestingly I just looked at statistics site and it says Finland and the UK also spend a similar proportion to each other on education so less of a case of spending more than spending differently (assuming the statistics are correct). They don't do the fun stuff in school here, they don't have frequent school trips like primary schools in the UK have, or spend time making projects or having special days like Tudor days or Roman days (as I remember from primary school). I imagine a lot of parents and children wouldn't like to lose those (but of course for Finnish children they've never experienced them so they're not losing anything). Less time spent in school but the time there is spent seriously for the most part (does depend on the teacher, DD's class teacher is the PE teacher and when the winter olympics were on they spent a lot of class time watching the olympics! And they will do stuff like pick mushrooms in the forest, or the teaching assistant brings in a pile of fish for them to learn how to gut and clean).

Not Singapore style though. The days are short, there isn't intense pressure, they get a break every 45 minutes, its a relaxed atmosphere where teachers are called by their first name and there's no over the top rules about appearance and things like that.

Of course Finnish parents give children books if they want to read or do number stuff with them, that's normal parenting, I think the levels of parents reading regularly to under school age children are higher here. But that's not the same as being in school and having to learn, whether you're ready or not. DD didn't learn until school, she was not ready, I tried teaching her in English before school and she wasn't getting it at all. After the preschool year she was ready to learn and she was reading Finnish fluently by end of first term of 1st grade, and learnt English at home during the summer holidays (not in one summer holiday)

I was amazed when I went into school to help out how much time they spent sitting at desks at reception age. And how little time was spent doing activities to support them in writing (building up strength and control in fingers) and reading (for example story telling outside to develop a love of reading. Or listening to poetry to hear repeated sounds) . Instead those that were struggling to write were just made to do it over and over again without trying different ways to help them. It's so young at four and five for many of the children to be sitting down for such a long time.

I helped in a Reception class when I was in 6th form and the teacher made me keep one little girl in at breaktime to practice writing the letter F over and over because she kept doing it backwards. Did not feel right.

Don't they just have 10 million people and a very homogeneous population? You're not comparing like with like. You have to create major cultural change too so that teaching is a high status, well paid career.

They have 5.5 million people. If the tax is similar there’s something they don’t do! You can only get the same out of a pint pot.,Overseas aid! We give a high proportion. NHS: £150 billion a year! HS2: £100 billion. NATO costs. I’m sure there’s lots of reasons why we are different! It’s inevitable that larger countries are.,

If lots of DC can read before going to formal school, then they don’t wait until 7.

Well, a lot less money is spent on giving lucrative contracts to politicians buddies and family members... I would reckon less on overseas aid but haven't found a stat for that

OECD data gives a bit more information, the UK spends a bit more (about 1000 dollars more) per student than Finland for primary and secondary, a lot less for early childhood education (which makes sense, as its much more subsidised here and goes on for longer) and more on tertiary. Altogether UK spending on education is higher than Finnish spending. Also UK spends a bit more per capita on healthcare but has less hospital beds per capita. Think I might be going down a statistical rabbit hole now

I don't know how many children read before starting school, there was only two who could read before school in my DD's class but that was just a sample size of 18. But learning to read casually at home is not the same thing as being taught to read at school, at home its (usually) led by the child so those who are capable of early reading will do so but those that aren't, won't, but at school everyone has to learn whether they're ready to or not.

Scotland has a similar size population - don't think schools are that good - can't help feeling our dire drug problem must used a lot of tax money on health and benefit payments.im old enough to have had the sit in rows listen to teacher education when Scottish education was probably the best in the world . My sis is 7 years younger and it had changed to a more liberal' it's not how you write but what you write attitude ' - I still spell and recite my tables better than she can

Top 5 richest country in the world, cuts 0.7% of budget to foreign aid and 0.5% of UK budget, and the loony right (extremists ) think even that's too much....0.5% of total budget is too much.....it's enough to make me physically sick....

37 billion quid wasted on track and trace, run by a friend of the Tory party and wife of Tory MP, Dido Harding .

The House of Commons Public Accounts Committee published the department of Health lost 75% of the £12bn spent on PPE in the first months of the pandemic to inflated prices and kit that did not meet requirements, £4bn worth that will not be used in the NHS and will have to be disposed of. When then Health minister was awarded things like £30-million contract to produce vials for Covid-19 testing awarded without competition to a company run by Hancocks ex neighbour, it doesn't take a genius to work out how that happened.

But god forbid we spend 10 billion on foreign aid.....
.

@TizerorFizz you wrote "Overseas aid! We give a high proportion." You think 0.5 % of total budget is a high proportion. And I'm the loony leftie who doesn't understand budgets!

Here's a link ...

thirdspacelearning.com/blog/percentages-ks2/#:~:text=What%20are%20percentages%3F,equivalent%20fractions%20and%20decimal%20numbers.

@strawberryband yup, no track and trace level wastes of money here although there was a PPE related scandal, but that was due more to misplaced trust than cronyism and was only 10 million wasted (and not all of it I think, they froze the payments at some point, not sure if they recovered any of the money already gone though) and the person in charge resigned.
Wild to think what that wasted track and trace money could have been spent on.

It's all well & good comparing the education systems. However parents/guardians are a child's most important educators... How do the Finns parent? How much screen time do they get? Do they do extracurriculars? Are they outside alot?

In my experience they're a lot more hands off past the early years, most of DD's friends parents didn't start limiting their children's screen time until DD moaned to her friends about me limiting hers and they heard her children are unsupervised a lot more as school hours are short so children go home alone (or hang out with friends, go to the park, whatever) while parents are at work. Schools have extracurriculars, last year there was a trial that every child would have at least one extracurricular activity for free, don't know if its continuing this year, hasn't started yet anyway. The last two years of primary they have an extra subject which is a pretty much series of extracurriculars, spending 5 weeks on each (DD is very happy about the one they start next week, playing board games!), and sports and other activities outside of schools are popular but can be expensive. Being outside is considered important, especially in the early years but it carries on throughout life.

@Natsku surely that's not good leaving the children unattended after school? I have noticed a trend in this here too, mainly among the Eastern European working parents, children as young as 9 or 10 have keys & go home alone...

Its how its always been done here and most seem happy with it and mostly the children manage fine but I'm sure there are situations where its not good. My oldest was going home alone twice a week in her first term of school until I started maternity leave and she wasn't the only one in her class.

In mainland Europe many children are much more independent than the UK. I was five when we left Belgium but friends and cousins there walked to school on their own/with friends from age seven. After walking home from school they let themselves into home on their own

That's so interesting, how about homework etc & study? Are they independent enough to just get on with it?

They're expected to be independent with homework and studying, they don't get homework that would need parents help like you get in UK primary schools (like building a model or something), my DD got into the habit in 1st grade of doing her homework as soon as she got home and has got a good studying habit now for exams but I helped get her into that. Schools treat them more independently too, they do cross-country skiing in PE, right from the 1st grade the teacher sends them out into the forest to ski round the track and waits for them at the end. Same with orienteering, they get their maps and sent out into the forest (once they've got the hang of it, that is). DD's class is going to the cinema on Friday, they don't take a bus there or walk in a group, they've just been told to bring their bikes and bike there.