Finland is a European country surrounded by Norway, Sweden, and Russia. Finland has a population of just over five million people. Finland was once one of Europe’s least advanced economies but today it is one of the richest and most successful nations. Many believe Finland’s success has been attributed to their high level of public investment in education and training. In 2011 Finnish youth were revealed to be among the best in reading, math, and science after the educational reform took place. Today more than 98% of Finns attend preschool at age 6, 99% complete compulsory basic education at the age of 16, and 3 out of 5 enroll in and 50% complete in state-funded higher education after upper secondary school (Sahlberg, 1). More than 90% of …show more content…
Education is the future of a country and Finland recognizes this and has gotten rid of the market behind it and focused on truly teaching the future leaders to come.
Finnish kids start school a bit later than most countries. They believe “kids should be kids”. The average child begins school at age 7. Social skills are developed in pre-school and language learned at home (Faust, et al.). In Finland pre-school is not mandatory. Children who do attend pre-school spend approximately 4-5 hours per day in school focused on play and preparation for their upcoming primary education. In Finland primary education begins at age 7. Primary schools are very small with a student population ranging anywhere from 10-300 students and most classes have no more than 25 students (Ruzzi, 4). Lower secondary school begins at age 12 or 13 in grade 7. The average student population is 250 per school (Ruzzi, 5). Students don’t take a
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Education is free to all and the same for all. Unlike many countries where your socio-economic class determines the standard of education you receive, all Finnish youth and adults receive the same education because the performance differences among schools are small. For those children who are struggling in the classroom a tactic used is an additional teacher helps those who struggle but the pupils are all kept in the same classroom, regardless of their ability in that particular subject (Burridge). The Finnish philosophy with education is that everyone has something to contribute and those who struggle in certain subjects should not be left behind. Education isn’t a money game in Finland. Education is free at all levels and every pupil has the right to educational support. Finnish schools have the shortest school days and are given lots of time to rest between sessions. Teachers use their non-teaching time to attend such duties as assessing students’ achievements, developing school curriculum, providing remedial help to individual students, etc. (Sahlberg). Finnish students rarely get more than 30 minutes of homework each day and most are able to complete it before leaving school. Finland’s Minister of Education, Ms. Henna Virkkunen said “Our students spend less time in class than other OECD countries. We don’t think it helps students learn if they spend seven hours per day at school because they also need time for hobbies and of
This just simply amazed the author. They are giving the children more free time which in the long run will help them learn a lot better and help them adapt social skills that are needed when they grow older. Schools in the United States do not even almost compare to schools that are in Finland. Partanen seems to be always referring back to Pasi Sahlberg. He is the director of the Finnish Ministry of education’s Center for international mobility and author of the new book Finnish lessons: What Can The World Learn from Educational Change in Finland.
With both the student and teacher having three less classes a day cuts down on stress. It also cuts down on the homework load for the student. Teenagers have a lot of responsibilities. Many high school students find it hard to manage their time and balance all of their activities. Many are involved with work, sports, bands, clubs, and many other activities.
While America pays its teachers moderate wages, Spain pays its teachers the highest wages in the world, yet its student’s average scores in math, reading, and science are worse than their US counterparts. The impact of these phenomena are used to describe why America’s school system might actually be defunct and in need of improvement if it is going to be of legitimate use in the future. To reinforce this stark contrast, the views of students in America versus Finland are thoroughly expressed. The Finish students saw education as a way to get a good job in the future, whereas the American students seemed rather apathetic about it. Ripley then summarized Finland’s student exchange program and how the majority Finish students are better prepared than their American
There are many aspects of society that can be compared when doing an analysis of three cultures: socio-economic statuses, occupations, fertility rates, diets, religions, economics, and politics are few among many. Education, and particularly early childhood education, is a fascinating topic to study when conducting a comparison because it has elements of all traits and greatly mirrors the values of the culture of that which it is present, “Preschools are sites where a variety of domains, interests, and social actors intersect. Preschool is where child rearing meets education; where the world of parents and home first meets the world of teachers and school” (Tobin, Hsueh, & Karasawa, 2009, p. 2). According to Tobin, Hsueh, and Karasawa (2009),
This is junior stage and teaches children in year 3, year 4, year 5 and year 6. • Key stage 3: Key stage 3 is for children aged 11-16. This is secondary school and teaches children in year 7 to year 11. There are many different types of schools. The different schools are: Mainstream schools: All children in England aged 4-16 are entitled to a free school pace.
Students that are in school during the summer find it harder to concentrate on the work that they are doing in school because they are waiting to get out of school into the nice weather. Year round schools make it difficult to learn with many breaks that they are given which can affect them negatively in and out of school. Year round schools should give long breaks instead of many little breaks because it is shown that there is no difference in learning between year round schools and traditional schools. During 2011-2012 about 3,700 schools were all year round schools and these schools didn’t benefit students and teachers in all good ways.
Which is contrary to the United States. The US does not require preschool, but does require high school (Laggren, 2017). Something that goes along side this is age requirements. In Mexico, students must remain in school until the age of 12 (Confessore, 2021) whereas students in the US are required to stay until they are 16 years of age (Findlaw, 2023). There are benefits to leaving school early as many students do in Mexico such as going to work to help their families with finances.
It was interesting to know that the U.S is try to adopt the most successful systems of education in the world such as Finland. It was interesting to know also that the U.S don’t have a standardized education system for the pre-school programs, so different places different programs. Most of the time this difference creates obstacles in the education system. Also an important things in this article was the strategies to close the achievement gap, I will disentangle reforms in child care system and more qualified pre-school
In the article,”What Americans Keep Ignoring About Finland’s School Success,” Anu Partanen discusses the numerous changes that were made to the Finnish education system, such as eliminating inequality between students, in order to give all students the chance to receive a proper education. While reading the article, it is understood that Finland was not always on the bridge of success. it was a country that was in need of reform, which many believed to be impossible at the time. Some of the changes that were made during this reform included several aspects, with the stress on equality being number one Partanen states, “the main driver of Finnish education policy has been the idea that every child should have exactly the same opportunity to
So, they can improve the odds of adolescents getting sufficient sleep so they can thrive both physically and academically. I agree with this source, starting schools later could enhance student’s school performance academically and athletically. Starting school too early are preventing many teenagers from getting the sleep they need to start off their day. I aim to using this this source to support my claim as to why students need more sleep and how it would affect them throughout the school day. This will benefit my essay by forward explaining why school should start later in the morning and why doing this will be better for the students’
All of the schools that beat America had school year-round and went more days than 180. Finland, for example, has a dropout rate of less than 1%. Finland’s
But this does not mean that they should be given endless stacks of homework. By this, I mean when they are given a lot of homework for the next day, the student will gets upset and do not want to go to school because he doesn 't want punishment for what he couldn 't do. This is my personal opinion. Homework is a never-ending conflict at school, the students want less homework but the teachers have to give them the homework, so they can study at home. Lastly, I would say a student needs time to learn but also time to play and relax and to enjoy life with his family and
In the world today about 264 plus million children are being denied access to free education, according to Global Campaign for Education-civil society movement. Up to 80 percent of the world's out of school 5 to 18 year olds live in the sixty-five countries that a similar, more modern organization, Global Partnership for Education, is associated with. These are the children that are going to be leading and populating their own countries eventually so if have no education, how can they make logical decisions for the benefit of their country and the world? Education is globally recognized as a human right according to a number of international conventions. In all highly developed countries most people would claim education should be free for children worldwide yet a quarter of a billion children are denied education.
In the contemporary times, great importance is given to the significance of early years of a child’s life. It is widely acknowledged now-a-days that the early childhood years are a predominantly receptive phase in the developmental process. This stage is responsible to lay a foundation in early days and later years for cognitive functioning, learning process, physical wellbeing, and self-regulatory capacities in both personal and social lives. In simple words, “the period from birth to age 5 is one of opportunity and vulnerability for healthy physical, emotional, social, and cognitive development” (Karoly, Kilburn & Cannon, 2005). However, it is also a fact that many children go through several stressors during their developmental years due to which their healthy development may be impaired.
Adults might accuse us of wanting shorter school days because we are being childish. Society will tell us we are asking for the impossible, but it's already happening. Finland has been responding to students; need with amazing results. They have shorter schooling days; they begin school when they are seven and graduate at sixteen. Compared to other schools, tests and homework are basically nonexistent.