http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/8601207.stm
Finland's schools score consistently at the top of world rankings, yet the pupils have the fewest number of class hours in the developed world.
By Tom Burridge
BBC World News America, Helsinki |
Last year more than 100 foreign delegations and governments visited Helsinki, hoping to learn the secret of their schools' success.
In 2006, Finland's pupils scored the highest average results in science and reading in the whole of the developed world. In the OECD's exams for 15 year-olds, known as PISA, they also came second in maths, beaten only by teenagers in South Korea.
 |
Education in South Korea
In South Korea, the school day is long and pupils have a much stricter study regime.
 |
This isn't a one-off: in previous PISA tests Finland also came out top.
The Finnish philosophy with education is that everyone has something to contribute and those who struggle in certain subjects should not be left behind.
A tactic used in virtually every lesson is the provision of an additional teacher who helps those who struggle in a particular subject. But the pupils are all kept in the same classroom, regardless of their ability in that particular subject.
Finland's Education Minister, Henna Virkkunen is proud of her country's record but her next goal is to target the brightest pupils.
''The Finnish system supports very much those pupils who have learning difficulties but we have to pay more attention also to those pupils who are very talented. Now we have started a pilot project about how to support those pupils who are very gifted in certain areas.''
My thoughts on this topic on Finland's education system:
Having the brightest pupils is not necessarily a good thing because there is such a thing as favouritism of the teachers. It would be good to let all pupils to take the psychological test known as DICE. The best thing is that many parents would put their children into the top schools. I am one good example of that.
No comments:
Post a Comment