in the classroom
Professor Pasi Sahlberg . Picture : Daniel Hu / News Corp .
Unlocking potential
Can Pasi Sahlberg ’ s Finnish thinking help fix Australian education ?
By Michael Lawrence
With the teacher shortage looming large in headlines around the country , education minister Jason Clare has announced an expert panel to “ inform a better and fairer education system ”.
The six-person panel includes Professor Pasi Sahlberg .
Sahlberg is not yet a well-known name in Australia , but in Finland , he is well known to all educators , and internationally he is a close second to the late Sir Ken Robinson in reputation , book sales , speaking appearances and the like .
Professor Sahlberg is also the only person on the panel who has direct experience in reforming an education system : he was instrumental in shaping the world-leading Finnish system , and he has consulted with dozens of countries in this field .
Professor Sahlberg ’ s presence signals a big shift in educational thinking in this country .
He has lived in Australia for several years now , and whilst working in the education faculties of several universities , he has generally remained an observer .
In a recent opinion piece , he asked the question , “ Is Australia an Educational Lone Wolf ?’ His contention was that Australian education had changed little in decades , and when it had changed , it was not necessarily for the better .
Assuming that Professor Sahlberg has some influence on this panel , how might we expect to see our education system changed in a way that can assist the teacher shortage and other issues ?
One suggestion Professor Sahlberg made in the above opinion piece was that Australia attend the 2023 International Summit on the Teaching Profession .
Minister Clare has announced that he will be doing this , becoming the first Australian Education Minister to attend the event since it began in 2011 .
Firstly , we don ’ t have a teacher shortage ; rather , it is a shortage of teachers prepared to teach in the system as it currently exists .
There are many thousands of former teachers who have found other roles other than classroom teaching , both within and outside of the education sector .
Whether many of these can be enticed back to the classroom remains to be seen .
Attracting teachers to the profession is obviously going to be one of the challenges for the panel . For many years , teaching has ranked
Teachers and students want to find meaning in their work .
poorly in the popular university course choices .
Indeed , I recall Math education guru Eddie Woo saying that when it was clear that he would have an outstanding ATAR score , he was advised not to waste it on education .
I have two sons who have graduated in the last few years , one in marketing and the other in cyber-security . Both are now in jobs that have the flexibility of working remotely four days per week with considerable autonomy and trust in how they go about their roles . One of them is still regularly contacted by recruiters .
This is the environment education must compete in if we are to attract our best to the profession .
Obviously , teachers are not going to be able to work from home , however , research tells us that professional autonomy and respect are more important than wages in attracting people to education .
When Finnish teachers were surveyed on what it would take for them to
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