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Education standards in Finland

Introduction

At the end of the term, at a comprehensive school in Espoo in Helsinki, a long time teacher and also the principal of Kirkkojarvi Comprehensive School tried something drastic according to education standards in Finland. A sixth grade student of an Albanian boy was lagging behind in learning; efforts by the teachers did not bear fruits thus he deliberated, and resolved to hold the boy back a year something that had been faced out.

Education in Finland

Finland has made great strides in reading, mathematics, and literacy in science, in the last ten years, mostly because the teachers were given the freedom to decide the best way of changing the lives of the young children. The story of the child helped in time contributed tot Finnish education standards successes, an observable fact that has motivated, puzzled and at times annoyed most of the parents and education officials in the United States. Finnish education system came into the limelight in the year 2010 after a documented film waiting for superman which brought out the difference between the education system in Finland and the disturbed education system in the United States. A majority of Finland’s teachers estimated to be about 62,000 in about 3,500 schools are all professionals taken from the countries top ten graduates with masters’ degrees in issues of education the schools have manageable numbers of children that it is possible for teachers to know the weakness of every child and deliberate with the other teachers the best way to help a student when one method don’t work.

The turn around in the Finnish education did not happen instantly; it started as an idea to help the country’s economic recovery plan. The education officials had no idea that the education system was in fact, very successful until the year 2000 when the countries 15 year old showed that Finnish teens were the best readers in the world. Three years after that the country took the first position in mathematics by 2006 the country rated among the best in the world as it took position one among 57 countries, by the year 2009 Finland became second position in science, third position in reading, and sixth position in mathematics from an estimated 500,000 students from different parts of the world. The U.S government whose education system has remained on average has decided to inject money in the education system by initiating ideas from the private sector like vouchers, charter schools, which has led to the increase of numbers, an idea which cannot work in Finland which does not believe in statistics.

In Finland, standardized tests are not there, except for an exam at the end of senior high school. There is no competition as there are no ranking or comparisons not forgetting that schools in Finland are funded by the public, run by the government agencies whose officials are professionals in matters of education furthermore all schools have the same goals and have the teachers taken from the same institution of training which sees to it that no matter where the student is getting the education, the quality is not compromised .that is why over ninety percent of graduates in Finland graduate from vocational high schools which is 17.5 more than in the United States, of all the graduates 66 percent proceeds to higher education making it the highest in the whole of the European union, with Finland spending 30 percent less on each student. In Finland teachers spend more time to asses their students and less time in class. Children are given more time to play, homework is kept to a minimal and schooling is not mandatory until a child reaches the age of seven.

Conclusion

In Finland, it is almost obsolete for a child to go hungry or remain homeless as Finland government gives a three year maternity leave to parents, apart from offering cheap day care services and free preschool to all kids under the age of five the State also pays the parents about 150 Euros each month for each kid until they attain the age of 17, about Ninety seven percent of kids at the age of six also goes to public schools, which provide them with food and free medical care. Every year the schools receive about 47,000 Euros to pay special teachers who are paid a little more than other normal classroom teachers because the work is demanding. Schools in Finland were not always marvelous not until late into the 1960 when the Finns were trying to free themselves from Soviet influence .Many children vacated public schools for private schools, which were only a privilege to a few. All that changed when Finland decided to put the past behind and move forward as one unified nation, which was once divided between two power rivals with the west belonging to Swedish monarchy and the east to the Russian czar. The Finns took pride in their roots, and unique language which only they could pronounce correctly, the western part of the country was later taken over by the Russians who were later overturned by the Bolsheviks in the year 1917 when Finland gained its independence.