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1. FINNISH MODEL OF BASIC EDUCATION
Reijo Laukkanen
Docent, PhD
University of Tampere
Finland
Utrecht
16 – 17 April 2015
1

2. PRESENTATION STRUCTURE
• 1) CONTEXT
• 2) CERTAIN HIGHLIGHTS
• 3) EVALUATION
• 4) CURRICULUM CHANGE
• 5) REASONS WHY FINLAND HAS SUCCEEDED
2

3. 1) CONTEXT
3

4. 4
Finland in Brief
 Independent since 1917
 Member of the European Union
 Population 5.4 million (17 inhabitants / km2)
 Two official languages: Finnish (91.2%),
Swedish (5.5%)
 Religion: Lutheran (81.8%), orthodox (1.1%),
others (1.2%), no religious affiliation (15.9%)
 Immigrants: 3,6 % of population
 Main exports: electronics, forest industry,
metal and engineering
 Father Christmas

5. Population with at least upper secondary education –
2011 (OECD 2013, 36)
5
Age group % Age group % Age group %
25 - 64 25 - 34 55 - 64
Australia 74 84 61
United Kingdom 77 84 67
Finland 84 90 71
Korea 81 98 45
Netherlands 72 82 60
USA 89 89 90
OECD average 75 82 64
Brazil 43 57 26

6. 5
4
3
2
1
Universities
4
3
2
1
10
9
8
7
6
5
4
3
2
1
3
2
1
School yearsAg
e
Pre-primary education in schools or
children’s day care centres
C
o
m
p
u
l
s
o
r
y
e
d
u
c
a
t
i
o
n
Basic education
16
15
14
13
12
11
10
9
8
7
6
Work experience
Work
experience
Specialist vocational
qualifications
Further vocational
qualifications
3
2
1
Polytechnics
Vocational upper
secondary education
and training
General upper
secondary
education
THE EDUCATION SYSTEM OF FINLAND
6

7. BASIC VALUES
• EQUITY: equal opportunities & fairness
• SUPPORT RATHER THAN CONTROL
• TRUST: culture of trust
7

8. Characteristics of Finnish Policy
• EXPERIMENTING
• CONSULTING
• USING RESEARCH DATA
• INCREMENTAL CHANGE
• BUILDING ON THE PRESENT
8

9. Quick look at policy developments in
basic education
• 1970’s Centralized system
• 1985 Decentralisation begins
• 1994 Decentralization deepens
• 2004 A step back towards centalisation
• 2014 More detailed curricular steering
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10. 2) CERTAIN HIGHLIGHTS
Resources
Teachers
Evaluation
10

11. RESOURCES FOCUSED TO STRATEGIC
NEEDS
• More to the lower secondary level (1985)
• Flexible use of teaching groups
• Part-time special needs education
• Remedial education
11

12. Country Pre-primary Primary Lower
secondary
Upper
secondary
Tertiary
Finland 5372 7624 11705 7912 9802
Korea 6739 6601 6652 9477 8226
Netherlands 7664 7954 11925 11750 17161
OECD Average 6762 7974 8893 9322 9274
Annual expenditure on educational institutions
per student 2010
12
(OECD 2013, 174) US $

13. Annual expenditure on educational institutions
per student (2007, 202) US $
13

14. DEDICATED,SATISFIED TEACHERS
• Teacher education is very popular choise
• Research-based teacher education
• All teachers have MA degree
• Why profession is so attractive?
14

15. Teacher salaries 2011 after 15 years experience
15
COUNTRY PRE-PRIMARY
EDUCATION
PRIMARY
EDUCATION
LOWER
SECONDARY
EDUCATION
UPPER
SECONDARY
EDUCATION
SPAIN 41,339 41,339 45,689 46,479
ENGLAND 44,269 44,269 44,269 44,269
FINLAND 29,125 37,886 40,917 43,302
JAPAN n.a. 45,741 45,741 45,741
KOREA 46,904 48,251 48,146 48,146
NETHERLANDS 52, 292 52,292 63,695 66,117
OECD average 36,135 38,602 39,934 41,665
(OECD 2013, 388-389), US $

16. Why is the teaching profession so
popular?
1) Not for the salary?
2) Become a teacher and change the world?
3) High academic degree – respected!
4) Autonomy in work – professionals!
5) Finnish society respects education.
6) Teachers are satisfied.
16

17. 3) EVALUATION
17

18. EXTERNAL ASSESSMENT AND
EVALUATION
• Evaluation approach supports Local/school
liberties
• Sample based evaluation
• No ranking lists – individual feedback
• School based/municipal evaluation
• Challenge – How to use the findings?

19. Example of feedback sent to schools
Lines of marks in school reports
0
20
40
60
80
100
poor
adequate
moderate
satisfactory
good
verygood
excellent
different marks used
average(%)ofcorrect
answersinthetest
school X the whole sample

20. EXAMPLE OF FEEDBACK TO A
DISTRICT
0
0,1
0,2
0,3
0,4
0,5
0,6
0,7
0,8
0,9
1
R
easoning
N
um
bers
G
eom
etry
P
ercents
Functions
A
lgebra
Fractions
C
oordination
A
lgebra2
A
rithm
etics
Continent
Disctrict A

21. 4) CURRICULUM CHANGE
1972 - 2016
21

22. CHANGE IN DETAILENESS OF THE
NATIONAL CORE CURRICULUM
• 1972 – 700 pp-
• 1985 – around 300 pp.
• 1994 – 110 pp.
• 2004 - around 300 pp.
• 2014 – around 470 pp.
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23. NATIONAL CORE CURRICULUM 2016
• Value background
• Conseption of learning
• Learning culture
• Learning environments
• Wellbeing
• Work accross subjects
• Evaluation
• Support
• School – home
cooperation
• Wellfare servises
• Languages and cultures
• Worldviews/ideologies
• Optional issues
• Issues that can be
decided locally
SUBJECTS
• Year classes 1 – 2 (goals,
assessment)
• Year classes 3 – 6
• Year classes 7 - 9
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24. 7 COMPETENCE AREAS
• Thinking skills and learning to learn
• Knowledge of cultures, interaction and
impression
• Taking care of oneself an everyday skills
• Multible reading competency
• ICT skills
• Working life competencies and entrepreneurship
• Sustainable future: participating, effecting and
striving to reach it
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25. CURRICULUM
• Municipality decides on the curriculum
structure
• Can be same for all schools or same only
partly
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26. 5) REASONS WHY FINLAND HAS
SUCCEEDED
Strategy
Policy instruments
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27. STRATEGY
• National will for everybody’s success
• High expectations
• Teacher education at the MA level
• Strong allocation of resources to lower
secondary level
• Support for weak studenta
• Consensus and respect between stakeholders
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28. POLICY INSTRUMENTS USED
1) Setting goals
2) Resources
3) Teacher education
4) Transparency/stakeholder involvment
5) Centralization/desentralization
6) Use of piloting projects/research, etc.
[7) Inspection]
[8] Text books control]
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29. THANK YOU!
reijo.laukkanen@uta.fi
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