Thursday 21 September 2017

Success stories of Scandinavian Countries in the area of education and innovation

By Jenni Rohrbach, President of the Finlandia Foundation of Montana
A get-together for the Scandinavian exchange students in Missoula, Sep 19, 2017.


I did put together a small speech, as I thought it would be good for all of us to think about and be reminded of the success of the Nordic Countries in the area education and innovations. And this speech goes out to our young audience, because of you, students, you are the examples of, and sort of ambassadors for delivering messages about the Scandinavian know-how, especially as it comes education. So if you run into somebody saying hi and asking where is that accent coming from, make sure you have something good in your back pocket to say about the Nordic countries and feel free to also promote our Nordic Group here in Missoula; our programs and events.

We all know that Denmark, Norway, Sweden, and Finland spend the most money on education and have placed at top in the international rankings. Education has been an investment, cause knowledge-based economy is attractive and because Nordic Countries, do not have many or any, except Norway, natural resources or strong manufacturing, so I would say that this type of social capital driven and collective impact, innovation type economy has been the driving force for the Nordic countries to market themselves.

I took a look at the recent statistics and the Times Higher Education released in March its European Rankings for 2017 and it shows that from 200 universities, the top 15 were in the Scandinavia and that there is a steady increase in the teaching quality and research too, especially in Finland and Sweden. Here’s the top list.

  1. Karolinska Institute- Sweden
  1. University of Helsinki- Finland
  1. Uppsala University - Sweden
  1. Lund University - Sweden
  1. Aarhus University - Denmark
  1. University of Copenhagen - Denmark
  1. University of Oslo - Norway
  1. Stockholm University - Sweden
  1. KTH Royal Institute of Technology - Sweden
  1. University of Gothenburg- Sweden
  1. Technical University of Denmark - Denmark
  1. Aalborg University - Denmark
  1. Aalto University - Finland
  1. University of Bergen- Norway
  1. University of Oulu - Finland
  • Most universities have good overall reputation and high enrollment number
  • Sweden has a high level of English language skills - an advantage when it comes to publishing research papers.
  • Universities have a strong bond with communities.
  • Free tuition for most European students, Imagine that 85% of funding for Swedish higher education comes from the government.
  • There’s cooperation between universities, including joint research facilities and strong industry connections.
  • And there’s generous investment in research from governments.

Top reasons why the universities have been so successful are the following:

So this is good news for the Nordic countries, but next, I’d like to say a few words about Finland as an educational superpower! Not to undermine the other Nordic countries, but since Finland is turning 100 years old this year, our job as a Nordic group is to recognize this. There actually are quite a few events across the USA taking place to celebrate the Centennial Finland and I’m sure our Finnish students know that there are lots of celebrations going on in Finland.

You must have heard that according to the PISA survey, Finnish students have been turning in some of the highest test scores in the world. Finnish educators have traveled across the globe to share our stories, but it has somewhat been challenging to make other countries understand our techniques. It’s been especially hard to explain Americans that our success it’s not about competition, rankings, standardized testing, best teachers or best “private” schools and also not based on performance or excellence, but our success was build upon cooperation and equity.

In Finland, we share this idea of that Less is More, meaning we get better results for not trying too hard. Less homework, more creative play. Less sitting down and listening in the classroom, more time for recess and breaks. More time for recess, also means more time in the teacher’s lounge for information sharing, more time for planning, evaluations, and simply resting and getting ready for the next class.

And there’s a whole lot of Trust in the system, meaning trust between administrators, teachers, students, and parents, also government and communities. Teachers enjoy a lot of freedom, they can recreate and self-evaluate, and see what works best for their classroom of kids. We have decentralized curricula and teachers usually stay with the same class of students for several years. Teachers are not being questioned by administrators or parents, but given prestige, decent pay, and a lot of responsibility. A master's degree is required to enter the profession.
And there’s trust in the system for the students as well- Finnish students are given a lot of independence and freedom of choice. The students are seen almost as equals to their teachers.  They are encouraged to teach themselves and each other.

And the last “ideal” is that Finnish schools try to be and like to be healthy and safe environments. This starts with the basics; free and nutritional school meals, easy access to health care, psychological counseling, and personal student guidance.

To conclude, while Americans love to talk about competition, we avoid that, cause that makes us Finns very uncomfortable. We like to think that "Real winners do not compete." Since the 1980s, we experienced our educational reform and success, the main driver for the Finnish education policy was the idea that every child should have the same opportunity to learn, regardless of family background, income, or geographic location. So education was never set to produce star performers, but to even out social inequality. In the end, our success was not our goal, but an outcome and a good surprise.

And, I’m not going to talk much longer, but I must say something about the most recent development.  Finland will be adopting a "phenomenon-based learning system" allowing students to drop the standard subjects and experience more holistic learning.

What this phenomenon-based learning means, is getting rid of all school subjects. Instead, students take one concept or event, and look at it through multiple lenses. For example, students could look at the European Union, and incorporate languages, economics, history, and geography, and then they could look at climate change the following week, involving science and environmental studies.

I think this approach is brilliant when you think of all social sciences, for instance, they are narratives that are interconnected. Whether you are learning about world war II, it combines religion, immigration, economic development, they all relate. And at the elementary and high-school level, you can think of acting out  “running a restaurant”, and learn about advertising, accounting, English-Spanish menus, design, home economics etc.

An article I read said that about 70% of the teachers in Helsinki are in some ways involved in shifting the education system towards event-based learning. This isn’t really surprising to me, as it seems like it would be more rewarding for teachers to be able to connect with students more and to teach them what they actually would like to learn. Finland plans to gradually change the system by 2020. So we’ll follow and see what this change brings!

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