Why is Finland consistently ahead findings from PISA

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Why is Finland consistently ahead (findings from
PISA) ?
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Ranking of PISA Results

• 2000 Finland HK
• Reading 1 6
• Mathematics 5 1
• Science 4 3

2003 Reading 1 10 Mathematics 2 1 Science 1 3
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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

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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.

Jyvaskyla
Helsinki
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Features of The Finnish School system an
overview

• Equal opportunities for education irrespective of
  domicile, sex, economic situation or mother
  tongue
• Regional accessibility of education
• No separation of sexes
• Education totally free of charge
• Comprehensive, non-selective basic education
• Supportive and flexible administration
  centralized steering of the whole, local
  implementation
• Interactive, co-operative way of working at all
  levels idea of partnership
• Individual support for learning and welfare of
  pupils
• Development-oriented evaluation and pupil
  assessment no testing, no ranking lists for
  schools

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THE EDUCATION SYSTEM OF FINLAND
1) Highly integrated Comprehensive School 2)
Non-graded system for Upper Secondary 3)
Interflow between Upper Sec and Voc Sch
Free Tuition from pre-school to PhD
Early identification of special needs
Free Meal
Free Books
Free Transportation
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• School run by Municipals
• Teachers are highly respected
• All masters 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

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Why Finland succeed?from consultants
slide(Comparison towards other Nordic countries

• Tradition
• Teacher profession
• Value of education
• Orientation of work
• Projects and their implementation
• Practical development
• Teachers in key role
• Organizers of education were also involved
• Strong support towards pupils
• Special education

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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

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• 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

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• 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)

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• 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

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• School Curriculum
• Central curriculum framework National Board of
  Education
• Comprehensive School
• Local authorities run the schools
• Highly Inclusive

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• 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

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• 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

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• Students
• Reading strong habit, female gt 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.

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• 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

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• 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

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• 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(?)

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(No Transcript)
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• 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

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• 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.

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• 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 -gt support and intervention (with Ts,
  specialist, external experts, parents and other
  pupils role)
• S expected to assume an independent role when
  progress to adulthood

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• 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

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• 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

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• 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

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• 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

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• 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

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• 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

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- S and parents choices respected e.g. when
students leave grade 9 (or grade 10 which is
optional), they choose their upper secondary
schools (Ts 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)
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• 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

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Why quality output? (a suggested interpretation)

• Culture/values and norm -gt choices -gt ownership
  to effort consequences
• Small nation history
• Limited resources and challenging environment
  -impact on goal at national and individual level
• Value on each individual -gt
• Early identification and support to minors
• Impact on frame of choices and behavior in
  general e.g. non-tracking inclusive social
  redistribution

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• Trust and mechanism adopted
• Professionalism with compatible rules and
  mechanism design
• Ts 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

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• 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