The Finnish Way of Education Performance
Finland is one of the few OECD countries that has been able to improve its educational performance, as determined by international standards and testing. For decades, the Finnish educational system was best described as mediocre and inaccessible to most students. As a key element to Finland’s economic recovery plan, education became a prime factor.
Finland’s educational results came to the world’s attention when it scored highest in reading in the 2000 PISA test. This was no fluke, no statistical aberration. Three years later, it was first in mathematics; in 2007, it was first in math, and in 2009, it was second in science, third in reading, and sixth in math, in examinations that tested nearly half million students worldwide.
What stands out in Finnish education? First, education is taken seriously by the national government and became an integral factor in the country’s economic plans. Second, the teaching profession is regarded as one of the most prestigious in the country, and teachers are selected from the top 10 percent of Finnish universities. Third, students from all parts of the country, from the bustling capital Helsinki to a rural village in Lapland, will get the same quality education. In fact, the differences among the strongest and weakest students in Finland is the smallest in the OECD. Fourth, there are no mandated standardized tests, except at the end of a student’s final year in high school. Fifth, schools, students, and regions of the country are not ranked against one another; there are no “best schools” lists. Sixth, every school has the same national educational goals and draws from the same pool of teachers graduating from Finnish universities. And seventh, Finnish teachers spend fewer hours at school each day and less time in the classroom than do American teachers. Children, who are not required to begin schooling until age seven, spend more time playing outside than American kids.
Altogether, Finland spends about 30 percent less per pupil than in the United States. Furthermore, the graduation rate from high school was 17.5 percentage points higher than found in the United States. As for college, 66 percent of Finnish high school students matriculate in colleges or universities, the highest rate in the European Union. In October 2021, the National Center for Education Statistics noted that 43 percent of recent high school graduates in the United States enrolled in four-year college while 19 percent enrolled in two-year institutions.
Sources: Pasi Sahlberg, Finnish Lessons: What Can the World Learn From Educational Change in Finland? (New York: Teachers College Press, Columbia University, 2011), 8; LynNell Hancock, “Why Are Finland’s Schools Successful?” Smithsonian Magazine, September 2011, https://www.smithsonianmag.com/innovation/why-are-finlands-schools-successful-49859555/. Graduation rates in the United States went up during the years of No Child Left Behind, but decreased after the programs ceased. Douglas N. Harris, “Are America’s Rising High School Graduation Rates Real—Or Just an Accountability-fueled Mirage?” Brookings Institution, March 2, 2020, https://www.brookings.edu/articles/are-americas-rising-high-school-graduation-rates-real-or-just-an-accountability-fueled-mirage/. LynNell Hancock, “Immediate Transition to College,” National Center for Education Statistics, 2021, https://nces.ed.gov/fastfacts/display.asp?id=51#:~:text=In%202021%2C%20about%2043%20percent,from%20the%20rate%20in%202010.
