Ambassador unveils secrets of education in Finland

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Ambassador unveils secrets of education in Finland

By Gao Yinan (People's Daily Online) 08:15, November 20, 2013

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Beijing, Nov.20 (People's Daily Online) -- Education in Finnish is world-renowned for its high-quality educational system. The secrets lie in equal learning opportunities and all well trained teachers with university degrees.

"Throughout years, Finnish government has always elevated education system. "The new Finnish ambassador to China, Mr. Jari Gustafsson told People’s Daily Online in the exclusive interview.

"Education system is something that Finland never try to cut down because of saving costs, instead, we kept enhancing education system all the time, even in the difficult years."

Basic education is free and compulsory for children between the ages of 7 and 16. It includes tuition, books and supplies, the midday hot meal, and transportation in cases where the student lives more than 5 kilometers from the school.

Education in Finland offers a wide variety of educational programs, from short-term courses to full degree programs. The Finnish higher education system comprises two parallel sectors: universities and polytechnics.

"The key is that teachers have to be in good quality." Ambassador Gustafsson said in the interview, "Teachers in Finland are well trained and they all have university degrees."

"Unlike many other western countries," Ambassador Gustafsson said that teachers in Finland are allowed only to teach, not take care of things beyond curriculum. For example, sports games and communicating between families and schools.

"Teachers only teach. Once they focus on what they do best, also they get also better results."

Teacher’s social status is very high. Ambassador Gustafson said "In some towns, teachers get elected as municipal officials because they are respected by people."

"Schools and teachers can quite openly choose the material they used in teaching children." Ambassador told People’s Daily Online another mystery of Finnish education is that teachers have lots of say to curriculum of the young children.

Even given to the freedom, schools have narrower difference than any other counties in the world, Ambassador said.

Therefore, teachers in Finland have a personal and lifelong learning skill in self-graduating, in ambassador’s words, "They really are allowed to take care of improving own professionalism."

"This is one of big secrets in Finnish education system," Ambassador Gustafson told journalist that school hours are shorter than many other countries and students don’t have so much homework even.

Instead, schools and teachers in Finland have responsibilities to take care of students’ learning and are supporting children to study more and leanings more after school.

It is worth mentioning that the Finnish education is doing an interesting attempt according to Mr. Ambassador that Finnish universities is now try to bring together engineers, business people and arts students. They work, study and do different projects together. They inspire and communicate with each other and creativity helps make the find final products.

Ambassador also mentioned that, in recent years, more and more outstanding Chinese students has been to Finland for higher education. "Finnish universities welcome students from China and hopes to attract more" Ambassador said.

"Academic level of Chinese university is so high," Ambassador Gustafson sees China’s huge driving force to the world’s economic growth and he supports university-level cooperation with China.

There are 20 universities in Finland: ten multifaculty institutions, three technical universities, three schools of economics and business administration, and four arts universities. Their operations are based on academic and personal freedom. Each university defines its own regulations governing curricula and degrees, and sets its own annual admission limits.

And there are 29 polytechnics in Finland. The special feature of the polytechnics is their close link with working life and their aim of providing vocational skills in different sectors

However, gaining admission to college in Finland is not easy. In 2011, a total of 66,000 people applied for college and only 17,000 people were admitted. For the pol,technics, there were a total of 70,000 applicants but about 22,000 people passed exams according to the data provided by Finnish embassy on its website.