Since 2000, Finland has attracted attention around the world for consistently high scores on student achievement among OECD countries in the Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA) studies. Some scholars have lauded the system, arguing that the world can learn from Finland’s commitment to equality and providing a high level of respect for teachers. Others have shrugged off the results, arguing that it is difficult to learn from a country with such high socioeconomic equality and such low populations of immigrants and minority groups.
If there is one generalization I can make about education policy, it is that education policy has few accurate generalizations. Education is an incredibly complex field with many unanswered questions and few easy answers. Reducing a question as complex as “Why are students achieving so highly in Finland?” to one or two causal explanations is likely to be as unfair as it is to be inaccurate.
Convinced that there was more to explaining Finland’s successes than has been popularized, I decided to see for myself.
The thrill of a summer independent research trip is both exhilarating and daunting: the road is yours to pave, but only you can pave it. Supported by the Weatherhead Center for International Affairs, my summer trip took me to Finland’s National Ministry of Education and Culture, the National Board of Education, the Trade Union of Education, and the offices of various professors from Helsinki and Espoo to Turku and Jyväskylä. I visited dozens of primary and secondary schools that so kindly opened their doors to welcome me to a world of fascinating observations, from third graders going to recess by themselves to tenth graders learning intricate English grammar rules many American students may have never even seen.
What did I find? Educational equality and a high level of respect for teaching as a profession are indeed strong, central themes of the Finnish education system. These themes appear to be powerful in shaping the educational mission and ensuring the success of all students, no matter their backgrounds nor learning difficulties. Having each student “reach his or her own personal best” is often touted in many cultures, but the Finnish system actually infuses this vision into its everyday practices. Each student is seen as an individual who can and will learn on his or her own time with his or own individual needs being supported. When students are seen as unique individuals intrinsically learning at their own pace and talented in their own areas, there is no longer the need for a proliferation of standardized testing, blaming teachers for failing marks, or shunning additional special assistance. None of these practices have found their way into the general Finnish system.
At the same time, it is important to also note that these themes are neither universal nor perfect in the Finnish education system. In parts of Finland, and especially in wealthier cities such as Helsinki and Espoo, freedom for parents to select schools has motivated many comprehensive schools, considered the symbol of educational equality in Finland, to specialize in certain fields to competitively attract more talented students. Just like we may expect to find elsewhere in the world, there are teachers who commit to education first and foremost because teaching is a calling for them, while there are other teachers whose favorite part is the stability of the job and comfort of having a long vacation. There are very poor students and there are very rich students. Their access to educational resources is not completely independent from this status. There are many Finnish people, but there are also many, and increasingly, immigrants and refugees. Indeed, Finland faces many of the same challenges of other countries: How do we engage students who face difficult learning conditions? How do we support advanced students while not perpetuating inequalities?
So is there really a secret formula to student achievement in Finland? No one can say for sure, but what I found invaluable during my trip was a sense of continuity and consistency in the Finnish system.
Finland took over much of its private schools in the 1970s and transitioned to a system of comprehensive schools from age seven to age 16 for every child. How that system has been implemented in each city differs slightly, but for the most part, the comprehensive school has become widely institutionalized and since the PISA results, widely applauded. In Finland, there is a basic consensus to educational policy. The left and the right agree on the comprehensive school, and they have not set out to change it through any drastic measures, such as completely overhauling the curriculum or pushing for privatization of schools. When there is a consensus to education at a fundamental level, there is continuity and consistency. This allows students, teachers, parents, administrators, and government officials to develop a system that focuses on working together toward what really matters: educational quality and equality.
In the Finnish system, all of these stakeholders develop a sense of trust. Administrators believe in their teachers as professionals; government officials believe in cities and schools to implement education properly; parents believe in educators to do the job that they are supposed to do. When this trust exists at all levels, the bureaucratic and regulatory elements do not so much impede but instead improve the system.
This political consensus is not the single reason to why Finland is doing so well. My research trip has affirmed the suspicions that motivated my trip to begin with: there is no single reason for educational success. What may be translatable to other countries, however, is that perhaps even more important than the actual educational program being implemented in a country, there is some intrinsic benefit to a system with a consistent foundation where policymakers have come to some fundamental agreement on the basics of education so that drastic educational reform after reform are not touted as innovations while risking the futures of our children. Given the view of education as a universal good around the world in theory, governments may find wisdom in eschewing the ideological battlefield and making more collaborative attempts to implementing education as a universal good in practice.
