Back in March of this year I went to TEDxGranta and had a fab day, partly because I met Ross Sargent, co founder of Cambridge Kung Fu. Since that day I’ve kept in touch with Ross on Facebook where he shares some interesting and useful stuff. Recently he shared a video talk by Pasi Sahlberg called ‘Finnish Lessons: What can the world learn from educational change in Finland’. Here’s a link to the video (it’s a whopper – clocking in at 1 hour 20 minutes, Ross suggests you can wind through the first ten mins):
Now being a kind soul, Ross watched the talk then summarised his observations. He’s kindly allowed me to repost these as a guest post, thanks Ross. I’m inspired by what the Finnish people have achieved and as Ross says – we could do this! Here’s his summary of the talk and why the Finnish education system works, hope you like it.
1. Trust people to do their best.
2. Teach people to be responsible don’t make them accountable.
3. Value teachers especially primary school teachers above pretty much all other professions! Pay them a good salary and give them plenty of time for teaching and planning within their work hours.
4. No testing under the age of 16.
5. No external checking.
6. Start half day school at 6 (combined with half a half day of play) and full time school at 7.
7. Multiple avenues for success that are equally valued in society – both academic and practical.
8. No private education – the aim is for absolutely everyone to be given the exact same opportunities to succeed.
9. Teachers get to design their own syllabus for their school – and studies have shown that this has led to by far the least variation in academic standards across all schools of all measured countries!
Along with Singapore and South Korea, Finland is consistently in the top 3 performing schools in all known measures and has been for the last decade or so.
We live in a different country with different issues but 30 years ago Finland did not have a good education system and now they have the best, so change is possible. They were not ‘born’ with a good education system, they thought about what needed to change and made the changes they felt were needed and have continued to refine the system and will continue to do so. We could do this!
Great post. We can learn something from our Finnish friends, I think.
Humap was set up 12 years ago in Jyvaskyla by three Finnish head teachers, who were part of the movement that brought Finnish education to its present state and then chose to do it again for businesses and organisations, pretty well as Ross suggests. Humap is now one of Finland’s leading HR and OD consultancies owned by its 24 employees.
Rik Berbe, a Dutch colleague in Humap commented that his friends believe that in terms of management and leadership education and practice, Finland is ten years ahead of the rest of Europe. I’d agree.
Things that go along with Ross’s list that also make “the difference that makes the difference” I think include equality, respect, directness, practicality and patient focus on the long term. The sense of equality is suggested by the fact Finland has the lowest pay differentials in Europe at around 4:1.
It seems to me that Finland is essentially a horizontal society, while the UK and USA are metaphorically vertically oriented. It interests me that Ed Milliband said last week,”If you want the American dream today, go to Finland.”
It’s also worth noticing that Finland has achieved this while changing radically from a relatively weak, agrarian economy to a strong knowledge and design -based one. It has also come through its own deep divisions as a society and nearly a century of being a strategic fulcrum between the Soviet Union and the West, determinedly balancing between competing superpowers. It has not been easy for the Finnish. It’s by no means perfect in Finland, but I do think we can learn a lot from their experience and I hope in Humap UK we can help.
Personally I think Sauna is also a key part of their success!