Finland's world class education system: a solid foundation for a more balanced society

In a recent article, Polly Toynbee wrote that she wants Britain to "aim for the social and economic balance that thrives in the Nordic nations." Well, Ms Toynbee (and Britain's politicians) would do well to learn from the Finnish education system, because it has managed to promote such an equilibrium by balancing equality with meritocracy. As a result, social mobility and equality of opportunity are a reality in Finland.


Over the last couple of decades, this small nation of 5.1 million people living in the 8th largest country in Europe has created arguably the best education system in the world. While the land is one of extremes, where temperatures range from -50C in the winter to +37C in the summer, there is a remarkable level of uniformity when it comes to primary and secondary level education. However, although Finnish education pops up quite regularly in the news over here, I have yet to see a detailed description of how the system works. So here goes.


The world-beating success of Finnish education can be boiled down to four basic yet powerful features. The first is a strong emphasis on producing high calibre teachers. Second, there are no centrally mandated targets or league tables. Third, fee paying private schools do not exist. And, finally, the system engenders a strong sense of responsibility in one's own actions.


More teacher training, less league tables


As a profession, teachers in Finland are held in high esteem. Although the pay isn't as good as that of, say, lawyers or doctors, the entry requirements are nearly as demanding. Secondary school teachers must have at least a Masters degree in the subject they wish to teach; while places for primary school teacher training are highly oversubscribed and very difficult to obtain.


After qualifying as a teacher, however, the professional is left to do their job and, provided there are no complaints, the state stays out of the classroom. There are virtually no centrally-imposed targets, rankings or league tables to distract teachers from their work at hand. In other words, get the professional right, and a good product will follow.


This lack of testing in favour of professional autonomy is especially interesting given the recent revelations here in the UK of examiners setting standards as low as possible; teachers feeling compelled to help their students achieve high grades, whatever the cost; and the rampant grade inflation that the UK has seen over the last decade. It would seem that the target-based culture has incentivised the different cogs of the UK's education system to focus on ticking boxes rather than on the process of teaching itself. To adapt Charles Moore's brilliant observation about mental processes: education in Britain has become industrial, whereas it should be horticultural.


By contrast, the frosty northern garden that calls itself Suomi has seen no grade inflation in its upper secondary school matriculation exams (equivalent of UK A-levels). Year after year, the only ones to receive an A in each subject are those whose results are in the top 5% nationally. And the next 10% receive a B, and so on. The grade A+ doesn't even exist - and rightly so because as a concept it's as ridiculous as the Americanism "I'm with you 110 percent."


Furthermore, rather than a constant barrage of assessments and rankings, the focus in Finnish classrooms is on teaching kids how to learn - and exam results only gain emphasis when pupils hit their teens. Even so, Finland has consistently led the international rankings compiled by the Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA). Meanwhile, despite comparatively high spending per pupil, the UK has unfortunately been sliding down the list and in the latest study of 65 countries managed only 25th place.

Finnish children also start school later, do less homework and spend fewer hours in the classroom than their peers in South Korea, Finland's closest - if not only - competitor in educational success. The average school day in Finland lasts 6 hours, compared to South Korea's 9 hours (not counting the evening tuition expected of South Korean children). Likewise, Finnish children sit at their desks for 192 days a year, compared to South Korea's 220 school days, or a whopping 243 in Japan, another high flyer in the PISA rankings. (The UK school year is 190 days.) And yet Finnish students still manage  to equal and often surpass their Asian peers - and everyone else, for that matter - in educational achievement.


The high value of free education


Another important factor in creating the best education system in the world is the total absence of fee paying schools - as paradoxical as that may sound to people in the UK or the US, for example. In Finland, primary and secondary school is free at the point of delivery, whether you live in Helsinki or Inari, and whichever school you attend.


Schools in Finland (except Steiner education) are state-funded, and local authorities have a statutory duty to provide free education for each child in their area. The local authorities receive funds from the government which are earmarked for education, and the amount is directly linked to the number of school aged children in the municipality - a pupil premium, if you will, of about £5300 p.a. per student.


While the majority of schools have been created and are also run by local authorities, anyone can set up a school provided they meet three requirements: a suitable building and environment; a certain ration of teachers to children; and a curriculum that passes the local authority's vetting process. If a school fails to enroll enough students, it will be forced to shut down due to not qualifying for enough funds to sustain the above requirements.


As for the types of schools in Finland, there is a core centrally-mandated curriculum called Opetussuunnitelma (OPS), which aspirant headmasters must prove that their school will provide. After satisfying its demands to teach the basics (Finnish, maths, science, languages, history, physical education, etc.), each school can then bolt on any manner of specialities with which to attract students and, by extension, government funding. For example, some schools offer additional music, and others focus on sports, or drama, or even horse riding. Some schools might offer the typical local authority school curriculum to 95% of its students, and then offer a specialist class as well.

Each school can also get additional funding from the government with which to purchase and maintain the required equipment for such specialist leanings. This is also the case should a school provide extra services in poorer areas, or if they have a higher than average number of  students with special needs. But, again, the school must garner enough interest from parents and students to make the calculations work.


Because some areas will not be able to provide a specialist school - rural municipalities might simply not have enough pupils to make it sustainable - parents can send their children to any school in the country should they want to nurture a talent they've perceived in their little Pele or Pavarotti, provided that the child passes the required entry tests.


In this way, the Finnish education promotes equality of opportunity as far as the state can deliver, and, crucially, it's not disfigured into that corrosive form of levelling down known as equality of outcome. One school may have a better French teacher, while another may have a superior history teacher, but, overall, children receive the same amount of attention and investment from the government, after which they are allowed to grow and shine to the extent that they work and, therefore, deserve.


Competition, choice and responsibility

When it comes to upper secondary level education, there are some disparities in achievement between particular schools, but this is mainly due to a healthy dose of competition and meritocracy.


Each year, those leaving lower secondary school (16 year olds) can apply to any upper secondary school, whether a vocational polytechnic or an academic high school, anywhere in the country. (I will focus on academic high schools here, as that is where I went.) The schools, in turn, are allowed to cherry-pick the highest achieving applicants first, based on their final year grades from lower secondary school. After a school has filled up all its places with the cream of those who applied, the unsuccessful applicants are then assigned to their second, then third, and so on, choice of school - meaning some nail-biting summer months for the wannabe high schoolers. Every pupil is guaranteed a place, but getting into your dream school is down to whether you worked hard enough and performed well enough to earn it.


Upper secondary level schools in towns tend to receive more applicants than those in the countryside, which naturally drives up the entry requirements at urban institutions. This, however, is compensated by the government's student grants, whereby students can avail of a free monthly allowance and subsidized housing should they wish to study at a school away from home. And this grant is enough to live on, if not in total comfort, then certainly at the level of bohemian luxury associated with 21st century student-life.


Thus, even though there are regional and local differences in the standards of education, there is no reinforcing dynamic where a few schools do ever better while others sink ever lower. Instead, people can choose with their feet and study at any upper secondary level school in the country, provided they have worked hard enough in the classroom to earn their place.

The new Cygnaeus Lukio

Indeed, when I walked the halls of my good old alma mater, Cygnaeus Lukio, the school was the third most popular in my home town. (I chose it so that I could continue being in a music orientated class). Since then, however, it has become the most sought after upper secondary school in the town, and therefore the most difficult to get into. I'd like to think this development is due to the youth of today wanting to emulate my educational choices, but unfortunately for my ego a more plausible explanation would be that my former school managed to attract more students with its speciality offerings in music and science. Also, the fact that it was assigned by the town to move to a stunning new building probably did no harm to its reputation (the premises I was taught in were demolished to make way for a car park).


The high level of achievement attained by students in Finland's upper secondary schools is also, I think, partly due to how the curriculum places a lot of responsibility on pupils to organise and manage their own education. In a nutshell, one must complete 75 six-week courses in no less than 2, and no more than 5 years. Forty-five of these are compulsory (e.g. maths, sciences, Finnish, English, Swedish, PE and history), and the rest are electives (home economics, wood work, art, philosophy, psychology, French and German, or extra maths, or additional sciences, for example). Each course is offered a few times a year, and completing one necessitates passing an exam at the end of the six weeks. Students must plot out their own timetables, determined by what they want to study and when, and if you fail an exam, you have one chance to take it again, or risk having to repeat the whole course (which is the equivalent of throwing an almighty spanner into your carefully laid out timetable). The required amount of courses must be passed before pupils are allowed to attempt the final matriculation exams.

The coveted hat of  a high school graduate

This managing of one's own affairs, naturally, provides valuable training for life in the real world. In my own case, I took it a bit too easy for the first two years by giving myself only 30 or so classes per week. This strategy then backfired, however, in the form of a nightmare final year of 40 hours of classes per week in addition to studying for my finals. My mother always did say, "that which you leave behind, you'll find in front of you" - and upper secondary school sure did drive the lesson home.


So, there you have it, a 1.01 on the Finnish education system, where it matters not a jot whether children eat their morning porridge with a silver spoon or a wooden one because when they get to their state-funded classrooms, the children will all sit side-by-side. They might not treat each other equally - kids seldom do - but at least the state does.


Granted, this type of education system, and the state's investment into each citizen, does not come for free. Finland does have high taxes, but there is currently only a small difference between income tax in the UK and Finland. And while a VAT rate of 23% does make things significantly more expensive than they are in the UK, it is seen by most as an acceptable cost for promoting a society based on fairness.


Also, it has often been said that providing a consistently high standard of education is easier in Finland, with its highly homogeneous society, than it is in a multicultural place like Britain. However, recent studies seem to contradict this analysis as Finnish schools with higher than average immigrant students are also producing superb results.


With this kind of education system, it's therefore unsurprising that the social and economic balance that Ms Toynbee is after is alive and well in up north in Finland. And, even if its still no Utopia, and not everybody manages to bag their dream career, it's still a pretty good state of affairs when one's postcode and family wealth are less important in determining later success in life than one's work ethic, initiative and individual choices.

Burying talents in a muddy Finsbury Square

The camp

Last Friday, on my way to Moorgate after work, I decided to walk through the Occupy camp on Finsbury Square. I wanted to see how they were coping with the dreadful weather we've had this spring - and what I found was anything but a pleasant surprise.

The place was a mess. Some six months after being pitched, the tents looked battered. Everything seemed soggy. There were few signs of life and the din of the city was the only sound to be heard. I saw a mountain of rubbish in one corner of the square, rising from a pond made of its own garbage juice. The ground, previously healthy grass, had been reduced to liquid mud and brown puddles. At times I was unsure of what I was walking on (or worse, in).

There were a few slapdash attempts to create walkable paths. A piece of cardboard here, a plank of wood there, but these were so dispersed and slippery that even Crash Bandicoot would've found it difficult to skip through the camp unscathed. The Square, the mud, the atmosphere; it all made me think of a festival where the final act had long since finished, but the revellers still refuse to face reality, pack up, and go home.

When I finally made it through the sprawl of tents, I found the main information hub. Interestingly, compared to the fall out city that lurked behind it, this place was clean and orderly like town library. I found myself wondering: how could the people who set up this info hub, who obviously had some pride in appearances and organisational skills to boot; how could they put up with all this filth around them? How can they live with front and back yards that resemble pigsties? And why are there still, 6 months into this experiment, no concrete signs of progress or development on the site?

The inhabitants

And, then, it began to dawn on me. I had been thinking of writing a post about how governments like to live beyond their means. To a large extent, I realised, this movement and their actions reflect a very similar mindset of wanting the cake, but not being prepared to earn it. The ideological inhabitants of Finsbury Square argue for power and wealth to be distributed more evenly, but judging by the place they call home, they must either be unwilling or too lazy to work hard in order to increase their share.

Guardian photo gallery (from a sunnier day)

Polis, said Plato, is man writ large. Well, if so, this polity looked like the kind of ruffian you would find living in a cardboard box under a bridge in a run-down part of town.


Granted, they had shown some initiative by turning a bicycle into a power generator. But in terms of creating a sustainable and long term power supply, it would probably turn out somewhat impractical - unless, that is, they fancy cities powered by people in hamster wheels? 

Still, hardly a blueprint for improving the structures of our society, this camp. If this Occupy group can't even manage an acre or so without turning it into the toilet from Trainspotting, then why should we listen to them harping on about how to structure society? Just imagine the state of our infrastructure, sewage, electricity, NHS, telecoms, etc., if these Occupiers were put in charge.

There's nothing wrong per se with turning on, tuning in and dropping out, provided one doesn't become a burden or a bother to others. However, not only does the ship of fools at Finsbury Square spoil public places and ask for handouts, they also have the cheek to belittle everyone else by declaring "Why get a job? I have an Occupation." 

(Well, let's see. Jobs pay for 1) a roof, floor and four walls, 2) water for washing, 3) gas for heating, 4) electricity for entertaining and, most importantly, 5) food to sustain me. But you, on other the other hand, dear Occupier, choose to live in a tent surrounded by mud, refuse and discarded bits of dreadlocks.)

Similar wasters have of course always existed. However, from the Middle Ages up to the 17th century, before the French came up with asylums, rather than being allowed to plant themselves right bang in the centre of town, they were forced to wander the rivers and the wilderness. 

We need not be quite so strict these days, but - here's an idea - why don't these Occupiers petition the government and local businesses for a licence to use vacant properties? They could undertake a binding promise to leave the property in better shape than what they found it in. They could could do it up a bit, make it nicer. In short, they could add value.

The Guardian writes about a meeting that took place in the camp: 'In a bizarre act of protest, an older Occupier called Rob, shouting "fuck your process", left the meeting to fish a ukelele from a nearby tent, then sat strumming for the remainder of the meeting, to the annoyance of several around straining to hear.' This sentence, for me, reflects the camp and its relationship with London in microcosm.

The people being annoyed by the arrogant and selfish rogue playing the ukelele are us, the many, the real 99% who live or work around the Square. The bad apple, Rob, is analogous to the Occupy movement vis-à-vis London. He decided to unilaterally ruin it for everyone else, just like the Occupiers did with Finsbury Square. They have arbitrarily appropriated a public space and reduced it to their own private squalor in order to promote their singular political beliefs, whatever the cost to the larger community.

The malady

In "Protest and Communication", episode 6 of the sublime BBC series Civilization, Kenneth Clark looked at Drürer's famous work, "Melancholia I".

Albrecht Drürer, "Melancholia I"

He said of the engraving, created in 1514, that it was "one of the great prophetic documents of western man." It shows, Clark continued, "humanity at its most evolved. With wings to carry her upwards, she sits holding the compasses - symbols of measurement by which science will concur the world. Around her are all the elements of constructive action: a saw, a plane, pincers, and those two prime elements of solid geometry, the sphere and the dodecahedron. And yet all these aids to construction are abandoned, and she sits there brooding on the futility of human effort."


In the Late Middle Ages, according to Clark, melancolia had meant a simple combination of sloth, boredom and despondency. As radical as the "direct action" activists on Finsbury Square might fancy themselves, today's Occupy movement is actually captured perfectly by the engraving. They have in their lap the most powerful machine yet (the computer) and with it a key (the internet) to virtually every tool in history. But instead of utilizing these to make stuff with, or do things that could improve their communities, they sit down and bury their head on a table, their their talents wasting away in the muddy ground beneath their tents.

Despondency in Finsbury Square

That is no route to progress. It is the opposite, in fact. Where the civilized man develops himself and improves upon his surroundings with a view to making them permanent, the savage merely looks around haphazardly to satiate himself now. The Occupiers have grown up cushioned by the welfare state and the Western life of luxury. As a result, they have little sense of direction, and even less of a work-ethic - instead, they prefer to act on the basis of an incredible sense of entitlement. It is because of these reasons that the movement, while admirable in intent, will ultimately fail.

The alternative

I have no doubt that there are many people living in the camp who have honourable ideas and who really want to make the world a better place. Indeed, I agree with many of the Occupiers' gripes. However, the path to wilderness is filled with good intentions, while the road to progress is paved with hard work. Plumbing, hygiene, waste management, taking care of one's property, construction, gardening, education, health care... that's the stuff that really matters. And as is evidenced by the unholy state of their camp, the Occupiers unfortunately prefer to spend their time and energy on more glamorous and intellectually stimulating pursuits, like discussing the international legal dimensions of eradicating ecocide.

Instead of transforming public spaces into a health hazard, these people should use their time constructively and find something that they can make into an occupation, something with which they can add value. These would be revolutionaries could have put up tents, and then occupied themselves in a productive way by figuring out how to improve and help the area, its people and its environs.  If they had done this, they would have gained more friends, and they might have made a real difference for the better.

The last time I walked through Finsbury Square was on my way to a concert by Terje Isungset. If these Occupiers find it difficult to figure out what it is that they can give to humanity, they would do well to to ask him for some advice. Mr Isungset has made himself famous by playing music with instruments he crafted from birch, ice and stones, to name but a few novel materials. Now that's more like it - and Terje's incredible initiative contrasts glaringly with the the self-righteousness and laziness that are on display at Finsbury Square.

It is May Day after all, the day of the workers, so, guys, you really should get to work. And, please, leave our public parks just that: public.