industry & reform
‘ Constantly evolving ’
The secret to Finland ’ s top education system .
By Michael Lawrence
An award-winning school principal messaged me recently , concerned that his upcoming Finland education trip might be wasted as someone had told him that the Australian and Finnish systems will never be compatible because :
• The Finnish language is easy to learn so kids need less time at school .
• There is no immigration .
• The social classes are much more equitable .
• There is only one education system there .
When I visited Finland for the first time , I had similar things said to me , and I made it a goal to try to find the reasons exactly why the practices I would witness there could not be applied in the Australian context .
I quickly found another motivation for these answers as Finnish educators quizzed me about my own country ’ s practices . Did they work ? I was asked about things such as standardized curriculum and testing , followed by : Well , why do you continue to do these things ?
It quickly became obvious that , while we are quick to dismiss alternative practices , submitting them to ‘ rigorous ’ success criteria , we do no such thing with our own practice . Indeed , we make it quite difficult to change these practices .
But back to our earlier question .
While in Finland , I spoke with teachers , education lecturers , professors , and students ( I sat amongst the students for a couple of classes ), trying to identify aspects that would make what I was seeing , impossible to replicate in Australia .
I saw students and teachers dedicated to learning and committed to the process of doing so , with students taking ownership and responsibility for their learning in a manner I was not familiar with during my three decades in Australian education .
The students were very similar to Australian students , with the same concerns ( the latest music , computer games , sports , etc ) and mannerisms , but with one major difference .
As one US teenage exchange student told writer Amanda Ripley , “ Finnish teenagers were still rebelling against the adult society around them but neglecting their education did not appear to be among their choices for this rebellion .”
At one school , my host left me to wait in the corridor , saying the teacher would be there in a few minutes . Twenty minutes later the teacher arrived , and we went straight into the room which was full of teenage students .
I immediately expressed my surprise , as I thought I ’ d been waiting outside an empty classroom . He responded almost quizzically , “ What are your students going to be doing when you are not there to look over their shoulders ?” Indeed , within 12 months COVID struck and we saw exactly what happened when our students lacked a teacher looking over their shoulders .
I was starting to understand what it meant for an education system to be decades ahead ( one Finnish teacher who taught in Australia estimated the difference to be 30-40 years and wrote a piece in the Finnish education professional practice journal which described Australia as such ).
Oh , for those wondering about the factors listed by my principal friend in the opening paragraph ( I wish we held our own system to the same standards we seem to demand from any other ):
The Finnish language is known to be quite tricky to learn and Finnish students also all learn Swedish and English ; all but the older members of society speak each one with some fluency , as any visitor can attest .
I was amazed at the number of young people of African appearance I saw in Helsinki and wondered how they would be coping with the harsh winters so unlike those of African nations .
An education system that prioritizes equity will , in time reduce the gap between that society ’ s richest and poorest .
There used to be several education sectors in Finland ; I did not see any practices which could not be replicated in a country with multiple education sectors .
The biggest advantage to having one sector is that by having many in Australia , education has effectively been divided into states and sectors making it very difficult for educators to speak with any united voice .
Space prevents me from going through all the aspects that differentiate the Finnish system ( I am still learning them ), other
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