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No Tests, No Homework! Here's How Finland Has Emerged As A Global Example Of Quality, Inclusive Education

Others/world, 15 may 2022 3:40 am gmt, editor : shiva chaudhary | .

Shiva Chaudhary

Digital Editor

A post-graduate in Journalism and Mass Communication with relevant skills, specialising in content editing & writing. I believe in the precise dissemination of information based on facts to the public.

Creatives : Shiva Chaudhary

Student-oriented approach to education in finland has been recognised as the most well-developed educational system in the world and ranks third in education worldwide..

"A quality education grants us the ability to fight the war on ignorance and poverty," - Charles Rangel

The uniqueness of the Finnish education model is encapsulated in its values of neither giving homework to students every day nor conducting regular tests and exams. Instead, it is listening to what the kids want and treating them as independent thinkers of society.

In Finland, the aim is to let students be happy and respect themselves and others.

Goodbye Standardised Exams

There is absolutely no program of nationwide standard testing, such as in India or the U.S, where those exams are the decisive points of one's admission to higher education like Board Examinations or Common Entrance Tests.

In an event organised by Shiksha Sanskriti Utthan Nyas, RSS Chief Mohan Bhagwat remarked, "It is because they teach their children to face life struggles and not score in an examination," reported The Print .

Students in Finland are graded based on individual performance and evaluation criteria decided by their teachers themselves. Overall progress is tracked by their government's Ministry of Education, where they sample groups of students across schools in Finland.

Value-Based Education

They are primarily focused on making school a safe and equal space as children learn from the environment.

All Finland schools have offered since the 1980s free school meals, access to healthcare, a focus on mental health through psychological counselling for everyone and guidance sessions for each student to understand their wants and needs.

Education in Finland is not about marks or ranks but about creating an atmosphere of social equality, harmony and happiness for the students to ease learning experiences.

Most of the students spend half an hour at home after school to work on their studies. They mostly get everything done in the duration of the school timings as they only have a few classes every day. They are given several 15 -20 minutes breaks to eat, do recreational activities, relax, and do other work. There is no regiment in school or a rigid timetable, thus, causing less stress as given in the World Economic Forum .

Everyone Is Equal - Cooperate, Not Compete

The schools do not put pressure on ranking students, schools, or competitions, and they believe that a real winner doesn't compete; they help others come up to their level to make everyone on par.

Even though individualism is promoted during evaluation based on every student's needs, collectivity and fostering cooperation among students and teachers are deemed crucial.

While most schools worldwide believe in Charles Darwin's survival of the fittest, Finland follows the opposite but still comes out at the top.

Student-Oriented Model

The school teachers believe in a simple thumb rule; students are children who need to be happy when they attend school to learn and give their best. Focus is put upon teaching students to be critical thinkers of what they know, engage in society, and decide for themselves what they want.

In various schools, playgrounds are created by children's input as the architect talks to the children about what they want or what they feel like playing before setting up the playground.

Compared To The Indian Education Model

Firstly, Finnish children enrol in schools at the age of six rather than in India, where the school age is usually three or four years old. Their childhood is free from constricting education or forced work, and they are given free rein over how they socialise and participate in society.

Secondly, all schools in Finland are free of tuition fees as there are no private schools. Thus, education is not treated as a business. Even tuition outside schools is not allowed or needed, leaving no scope for commodifying education, unlike in India, where multiple coaching centres and private schools require exorbitant fees.

Thirdly, the school hours in Finland do not start early morning at 6 am, or 7 am as done in India. Finland schools begin from 9.30 am as research in World Economic Forum has indicated that schools starting at an early age is detrimental to their health and maturation. The school ends by mostly 2 pm.

Lastly, there is no homework or surprise test given to students in Finland. Teachers believe that the time wasted on assignments can be used to perform hobbies, art, sports, or cooking. This can teach life lessons and have a therapeutic stress-relieving effect on children. Indian schools tend to give a lot of homework to prove their commitment to studying and constantly revise what they learn in school.

Delhi Govt's Focus On Education

The Delhi model of education transformed under the Aam Aadmi Party's (AAP) tenure in the capital. In line with the Finnish model, Delhi government schools have adopted 'Happiness Classes' to ensure students' mental wellness through courses on mindfulness, problem-solving, social and emotional relationships, etc., from 1st to 8th classes.

Delhi government also introduced 'Entrepreneurial Mindset Classes' in 2019 to instil business and critical thinking skills among students of 9th to 12th classes. The practical approach in this class is indicated in the 'Business Blasters', a competition started by the Delhi government to encourage students to come up with start-up ideas and students were provided with ₹1000. Approximately 51,000 students participated in the first edition of the competition, according to Citizen Matters .

Through these endeavours, India is steadily investing in creating human resources that can get employment and generate employment for themselves.

India is at its demographic dividend stage; more than half of its population is within the working-age group of 14 to 60 years. Education is an essential factor in utilising this considerable advantage to grow economically and socially. Finland's education model is how India can strive closer to its goal and progress as a nation.

Also Read: Connaissance! Delhi Board of School Education Pens MoU To Add French In Government Schools

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Education System
Fins and Fun

Homework in Finland School

How many parents are bracing themselves for nightly battles to get their kids to finish their homework every year with the beginning of a school year? Thousands and thousands of them. Though not in Finland. The truth is that there is nearly no homework in the country with one of the top education systems in the world. Finnish people believe that besides homework, there are many more things that can improve child’s performance in school, such as having dinner with their families, exercising or getting a good night’s sleep.

Do We Need Homework?

There are different homework policies around the world. The Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) keeps track of such policies and compares the amount of homework of students from different countries. For example, an average high school student in the US has to spend about 6 hours a day doing homework, while in Finland, the amount of time spent on after school learning is about 3 hours a day. Nevertheless, these are exactly Finnish students who lead the world in global scores for math and science. It means that despite the belief that homework increases student performance, OECD graph shows the opposite. Though there are some exceptions such as education system in Japan, South Korea, and some other Asian countries. In fact, according to OECD, the more time students spend on homework, the worse they perform in school.

Finnish education approach shows the world that when it comes to homework, less is more. It is worth to mention that the world has caught onto this idea and, according to the latest OECD report, the average number of hours spent by students doing their homework decreased in nearly all countries around the world.

So what Finland knows about homework that the rest of the world does not? There is no simple answer, as the success of education system in Finland is provided by many factors, starting from poverty rates in the country to parental leave policies to the availability of preschools. Nevertheless, one of the greatest secrets of the success of education system in Finland is the way Finns teach their children.

How to Teach Like The Finns?

There are three main points that have to be mentioned when it comes to the success of education system in Finland.

First of all, Finns teach their children in a “playful” manner and allow them to enjoy their childhood. For example, did you know that in average, students in Finland only have three to four classes a day? Furthermore, there are several breaks and recesses (15-20 minutes) during a school day when children can play outside whatever the weather. According to statistics, children need physical activity in order to learn better. Also, less time in the classroom allows Finnish teachers to think, plan and create more effective lessons.

Secondly, Finns pay high respect to teachers. That is why one of the most sought after positions in Finland is the position of a primary school teacher. Only 10% of applicants to the teaching programs are accepted. In addition to a high competition, each primary school teacher in Finland must earn a Master’s degree that provides Finnish teachers with the same status as doctors or lawyers.

High standards applied to applicants for the university teaching programs assure parents of a high quality of teaching and allow teachers to innovate without bureaucracy or excessive regulation.

Thirdly, there is a lot of individual attention for each student. Classes in Finland are smaller than in the most of other countries and for the first six years of study, teachers get to know their students, their individual needs, and learning styles. If there are some weaker students, they are provided by extra assistance. Overall, Finnish education system promotes warmth, collaboration, encouragement, and assessment which means that teachers in this country are ready to do their best to help students but not to gain more control over them.

The combination of these three fundamentals is the key to success of any education system in the world and Finns are exactly those people who proved by way of example that less is more, especially when it comes to the amount of homework.

$System of education in Finland$

System of education in Finland

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27 Surprising Finnish Education System Facts and Statistics

There has been a lot of press recently about how the education system in Finland is one of the best in the world and how they are using radical (compared with the UK and the US) ideas to help achieve their status as one of the best.

Anywhere you look the proof doesn’t seem to lie, yet how exactly is the Finnish Education system achieving such greatness? Their students outperform students in the US and the UK in most, if not all areas and their teachers enjoy a much better work life balance. Let’s take a dive into some of the things the Finnish are doing.

The Program for International Student Assessment (PISA) , a survey taken every three years by the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) routinely releases data which shows that Americans and British students are seriously lagging behind in many educational performance assessments.

The Finnish Education System

#1 Finnish children enter education at a later age than in many countries. They start school at age 7 and believe that “starting children in school before they’re naturally developmentally ready has no scientifically proven long-term advantage”.

#2 Prior to age 7, Finnish school children can attend day care/nursery school but they do not have formal education whilst there, Instead, they focus on creative play . “They need time to play and be physically active. It’s a time for creativity”. says Tiina Marjoniemi, head of Franzenia daycare center in Helsinki. The Guardian

#3 For every 45 minutes of learning, students enjoy 15 minutes of play.

#4 School is only compulsory for 11 years, meaning students can leave education at age 18. Everything after that is optional. This idea is thought to prepare Finnish students for the real world.

#5 Finish students are not measured at all for the first six years of their education.

#6 Students in Finland only have to sit for a centralized exam (National Matriculation Exam) at the age of 18-19 years old (after 12 years of school).

Finland School Hours

#7 Finnish students do the least number of class hours per week in the developed world, yet get the best results in the long term. The school day starts between 8-9am and is finished by 2pm.

Finland Education Ranking

#8 The schools in Finland are not ranked in any way, there are no comparisons made between schools, regions, teachers or even students. They believe that cooperation is the key to success, not competition.

#9 Finnish Teachers are some of the most qualified in the world. The requirements for becoming a teacher in Finland are set very high, only around the top 10% of applicants are successful and all of those have a masters degree (which incidentally is fully subsidised!).

#10 Finnish teachers have the same status as doctors and lawyers. ( I wish that was the case in the UK! )

#11 Finnish Teachers are not graded. This is probably a direct result of their rigorous selection process and because of this, in Finland, they don’t feel the need to constantly assess and grade their teachers. If a teacher isn’t performing satisfactorily, it is up to the schools principal/head to deal with it. Pasi Sahlberg, director of the Finnish Ministry of Education and writer of Finnish Lessons, said this about teachers’ accountability:

“There’s no word for accountability in Finnish… Accountability is something that is left when responsibility has been subtracted.”

#12 Schools are not inspected. School inspections were actually abolished in Finland in the early 1990s. They have the ideology that they can help direct and assist through support and funding. Again, they trust the professionalism of teachers and school leaders. Schools are encouraged to self-evaluate along.

#13 There are no selective schools or private schools. One of the reasons why there is no competition between Finnish schools is that all schools are funded through public funds. No competition = level playing field.

#14 All Finnish school children receive free school meals, all of them, all the way through school!. There has been a healthy hot lunch served to all students been since 1943 for the whole 9 years at school. ( Huffingtonpost.com )

#15 Finnish students all have access to support that is individually based on their specific needs from the start of their school career. They believe that every child has some special needs and therefore special education is for everyone.

#16 The Basics are the priority. Rather than focus on increasing test scores and dominating in math, science and English, the Finnish education system focus on creating a healthy and harmonious environment for students and learning. The ideology of the Finnish education system is that education should be an “ instrument to balance out social inequality “.

#17 Finnish students have the same teacher for up to 6 years of their school career. This is one of the pillars of their harmonious education environment ideology. It allows student/teacher relationships to grow year on year, allowing a much deeper level of trust and respect than only having one year.

Finland Education Curriculum

#18 Finnish Students have less homework than any other student on the planet. Even with fewer school hours, they are still getting everything they need to be done whilst at school. This, in turn, builds on a Finnish child’s ability to grow and learn into a happy and responsible adult.

#19 All classes are mixed ability. This is unpopular in a lot of education systems in the UK and the US (I know, my own school recently adopted this policy (Personally, I love it) and there can be a lot of teachers that don’t like it. However, some of the most successful education systems have mixed ability classes, so it does work!

#20 Finnish Students learn more languages. They learn Finnish from their first day at school. At age 9 they start learning their second language (which is usually English). By age 11 they start learning Swedish, which is Finland’s second language. Many students even start learning a fourth language when they are 13. They are only tested on their first two languages in the final exam at the end of high school.

#21 Teachers only generally spend 4 hours a day in the classroom and have 2 hours every week for professional development , thus reducing teacher stress.

#22 The Finnish national curriculum is a broadly based guideline, allowing teachers to use their own style and ideas in the classroom. This builds on the trust that the Finnish education system has in its teachers.

Finland Education Statistics

#23 93% of students graduate from high school. More than in the US.

#24 66% of high school students go on to further education (college or vocational courses).

#25 Finland spends about 30% less per student than the US, the UK, Japan and Germany. ( OECD Indicators )

#26 Just under 100% of 9th-grade students in Finland go on to high school. This figure includes most of the severely disabled children ( smithsonian.com )

#27 43% of those students in further education (16+) attend vocational school.

So there we have it, Finnish students and teachers are part of a great system. Having worked with several Finnish teachers, I can tell you that their ideology and these strategies work, very well!

2 thoughts on “27 Surprising Finnish Education System Facts and Statistics”

As a student in Finland I realized some of this information is outdated. #1 – It states that children start their education at the age of 7. This is no longer correct because they can start is at the ages of 5, 6 or 7. Typically they do at ages 6 or 7. #3 – It is very school based. some schools do not follow this and it depends a lot. A school can have 45 minute lessons and a 5 min break. #4 – Over resent years it has changed into 9 years of compulsory education (basic education) 2-4 years of upper secondary studies/vocational application. #6 – the matriculation examination is at the age of 18 (typically the last two years of upper secondary studies). Not all students do this because they choose to go to vocational school. #7 – It is again very school based because some schools follow periods (certain subjects for 6 weeks and then the timetable changes). Most schools and students most likely have days from 8am-3pm. It depends a lot what day it is. #16 – To apply to upper secondary school and vocational schools they calculate the average of math, English, Finnish, Swedish, history, civics, religion/ethics, physics, chemistry, biology, geography, health education. #17 – Pert of this is true. Best case scenario they do have the same teacher for six years, but most of the time teachers are only qualified to teach certain grade levels. #18 – The amount of homework totally depends on the teacher. It depends how much the teacher wants them to do. Most times homework is tasks that they did not get done on lessons or ones that deepen the meaning of the subject. #20 – there are a lot of confusing things about this. In most schools the child starts learning Finnish from first grade onwards. From grade 3 onwards they start learning English. From grade 5 onwards they can decide if the want another language (typically French, German or Spanish). From grade 6 onwards they start learning Swedish. In the matriculation examinations the test Finnish and a second home language so either Swedish or English. #21 – Subject teachers can have as many hours a day as the pupils. This all depends how many subjects they are qualified to teach.

According to the Bildung Review the Finnish educational system is failing. Not testing and focusing only on cooperation seems to have failed. I hope Finland will shift in the proper educational focus.

OPINION: How Finland broke every rule — and created a top school system

William Doyle

William... More by William Doyle

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Enjoyed reading William Doyle’s piece on school education in Finland. Am independently developing a flexible, interdisciplinary, interactive, and affordable learning model for K-12 education in India that integrates concept learning, hands- on activities, and life skills. Look forward to read more on new thinking in learning and education!

> But it has identified, often by studying historical educational research and practices that originated in the United States, many fundamental childhood education insights that can inspire, and be tested and adapted by, any other nation.

Can you elaborate on this? Did Finland learn from specific research that originated from the USA or studies from the USA? If so, which ones?

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The Finnish education system

Early childhood education, pre-primary education, comprehensive education, upper secondary education, higher education, applying for education and training, other study opportunities, language training.

The education system includes early childhood education, preschool education, comprehensive education, upper secondary education and higher education. Adult education is intended for adults and it includes a multitude of alternatives from comprehensive to higher education.

In Finland, children are entitled to receive early childhood education before they reach school age. Early childhood education is organised in day care centres and family day care. Children may also participate in open early childhood education together with a parent, for example, at a playground. The goal is to support children’s development and well-being and to promote equality in learning. In early childhood education, children learn, for example, social, linguistic and manual skills and gain different types of information. Children also acquire skills that help them learn more.

A lot of playtime and outdoor activities are included. If the child’s native language is not Finnish or Swedish, he or she will receive support in learning Finnish or Swedish. The child may also receive special needs education, if necessary.

In Finland, municipalities organise early childhood education. It is tax funded and therefore more affordable to families. There is also private early childhood education available in Finland. Trained early childhood education teachers, social pedagogues and childcarers work with children.

Read more about early childhood education on the InfoFinland page Early childhood education .

In Finland, children must attend pre-primary education for one year before compulsory education begins. Pre-primary education usually starts during the year when the child turns six. Municipalities organise pre-primary education and it is free of charge for families. Pre-primary education is given by highly educated early childhood education teachers. Pre-primary education is usually organised from Monday to Friday, four hours a day during school hours. In addition to pre-primary education, the child can also attend early childhood education.

During the time that children are in pre-primary education, they learn skills that are useful in school, such as the alphabet. They are not, however, taught how to read. If the child’s native language is not Finnish or Swedish, he or she will receive support in learning Finnish or Swedish. A typical day in pre-primary education also includes playtime and outdoor activities.

Read more on the InfoFinland page Pre-primary education (Link leads to external service) .

In Finland, comprehensive education normally starts during the year when the child turns seven. All children residing in Finland permanently must attend comprehensive education. Comprehensive school comprises nine grades.

Finnish legislation guides comprehensive education. National curriculum bases and local curriculums are also in use.

Comprehensive education is organised by municipalities and is free of charge for families. There is at least 20 hours of tuition per week for first and second grades and more for higher grades.

All comprehensive school teachers in Finland have a Master’s degree. Comprehensive school class teachers, who teach grades 1–6, are specialised in pedagogy. Grade 7–9 teachers are specialised in the subjects they teach.

Teachers are at liberty to plan their tuition independently based on the national and local curricula. Recently, curricula have emphasised, for example, entities that cover several subjects, investigating daily phenomena and information and communications technology.

Children often have the same teacher for the first six years. The teacher gets to know the students well and is able to develop the tuition to suit their needs. One important goal is that the students learn how to think for themselves and assume responsibility over their own learning.

The teacher evaluates the students’ progress in school. In comprehensive education, all grades are given by the teacher. There are no national examinations as such. Instead, learning results are being monitored with sample-based evaluations. These are usually organised in the ninth grade.

If the child or young person has only recently moved to Finland, he or she may receive preparatory education for comprehensive education. Preparatory education usually takes one year. After it, the student may continue to study Finnish or Swedish as a second language, or an S2 language, if he or she needs support in learning the language.

Adults who have moved to Finland with no comprehensive school leaving certificate from their native country may complete comprehensive school, for example in a general upper secondary schools for adults.

Read more about comprehensive education on the InfoFinland page Comprehensive education .

The most common options after comprehensive school are general upper secondary school and vocational education.

After comprehensive school, all young people have to study until they graduate from secondary education or reach the age of 18.

General upper secondary school

General upper secondary schools provide all-round education which does not lead to any profession. Mostly the same subjects are studied in general upper secondary schools as in comprehensive education, but the studies are more demanding and independent. At the end, students usually take the matriculation examination. General upper secondary school takes 2– 4 years depending on the student. After finishing, students are eligible to apply to universities or universities of applied sciences.

Most general upper secondary schools provide education in Finnish or Swedish language. Larger cities have some general upper secondary schools that provide tuition in other languages, such as English or French.

Adults may take general upper secondary school studies in general upper secondary schools for adults. There, it is possible to either take separate courses or complete the entire general upper secondary school syllabus and take the matriculation examination. Tuition may include contact teaching, distance education, online education and independent studies.

Read more about general upper secondary school studies on the InfoFinland page General upper secondary school .

Vocational education

Vocational education and training is more practice-oriented than general upper secondary school education. Completing a vocational upper secondary qualification takes about three years. In addition, you can complete a further vocational qualification or a specialist vocational qualification during your working career. On-the-job learning is essential in vocational education and training. If students so choose, they can progress from vocational education and training to higher education.

Vocational qualification can also be obtained through apprenticeship training. In this case, students work in jobs within their own field, receive a salary that is at least in accordance with the collective agreement, or a reasonable salary if there are no collective agreements in the field. Students are allowed to complete their studies at the same time.

Read more on the InfoFinland page Vocational education and training .

Preparatory education for programmes leading to an upper secondary qualification (TUVA)

Good language skills are needed in secondary education. If the student’s native language is something other than Finnish or Swedish and his or her language skills are not yet at the level required for general upper secondary school studies or vocational education, he or she can apply to preparatory education for programmes leading to an upper secondary qualification (TUVA).

Read more on the InfoFinland page General upper secondary school and Vocational education and training .

After finishing your upper secondary studies, you can progress to higher education. In Finland, higher education is provided by universities and universities of applied sciences. Universities and educational institutes decide on student admission.

Studying in an institute of higher education may be free or subject to a charge. You will be charged tuition fees if you are not an EU or EEA citizen or a family member of an EU or EEA citizen and are studying towards a Bachelor’s or Master’s degree in an English-language degree programme.

More information is available on the InfoFinland page Foreign students in Finland .

Universities of applied sciences

The education provided by universities of applied sciences is more practice-oriented than that offered by universities. Tuition also includes on-the-job learning. Completing a Bachelor’s degree in a university of applied sciences takes 3.5–4.5 years. If you also want to complete a Master’s degree, you must first acquire two years of work experience from the same field. Read more on the InfoFinland page Universities of applied sciences .

Universities

University teaching is based on scientific research. Completing a Bachelor’s degree in a university takes about three years and Master’s degree about two more years. Universities organise English language tuition in some of their degree programmes. However, the teaching language of most degree programmes is either Finnish or Swedish.

Once you have completed a Master’s degree, you can apply for a right to complete further studies and earn a Licentiate’s or Doctoral degree.

Read more on the InfoFinland page Universities .

InfoFinland page Applying for education and training includes information on applying to upper secondary and higher education in Finland. If you are planning to study in Finland, more information is also available on the InfoFinland pages Foreign students in Finland .

In Finland, there are also many educational institutions offering persons of all ages studies which do not lead to a degree. Most of these studies are intended for adults. These liberal adult education institutes include adult education centres, summer universities, study centres and sports institutes.

The studies provide all-round education. You can study languages, arts, crafts and communications, for instance. Normally the student has to cover some of the expenses of the education.

However, in certain situations studying at these institutions may be free of charge. Education is non-chargeable if, for example, education in reading and writing and other language training have been approved as parts of your integration plan.

If you would like to study Finnish or Swedish, read more on the InfoFinland page Finnish and Swedish language .

Local information

See your municipality’s information

Why Are Finland’s Schools Successful?

The country’s achievements in education have other nations, especially the United States, doing their homework

LynNell Hancock

Photographs by Stuart Conway

It was the end of term at Kirkkojarvi Comprehensive School in Espoo, a sprawling suburb west of Helsinki, when Kari Louhivuori, a veteran teacher and the school’s principal, decided to try something extreme—by Finnish standards. One of his sixth-grade students, a Kosovo-Albanian boy, had drifted far off the learning grid, resisting his teacher’s best efforts. The school’s team of special educators—including a social worker, a nurse and a psychologist—convinced Louhivuori that laziness was not to blame. So he decided to hold the boy back a year, a measure so rare in Finland it’s practically obsolete.

Finland has vastly improved in reading, math and science literacy over the past decade in large part because its teachers are trusted to do whatever it takes to turn young lives around. This 13-year-old, Besart Kabashi, received something akin to royal tutoring.

“I took Besart on that year as my private student,” Louhivuori told me in his office, which boasted a Beatles “Yellow Submarine” poster on the wall and an electric guitar in the closet. When Besart was not studying science, geography and math, he was parked next to Louhivuori’s desk at the front of his class of 9- and 10-year- olds, cracking open books from a tall stack, slowly reading one, then another, then devouring them by the dozens. By the end of the year, the son of Kosovo war refugees had conquered his adopted country’s vowel-rich language and arrived at the realization that he could, in fact, learn .

Years later, a 20-year-old Besart showed up at Kirkkojarvi’s Christmas party with a bottle of Cognac and a big grin. “You helped me,” he told his former teacher. Besart had opened his own car repair firm and a cleaning company. “No big fuss,” Louhivuori told me. “This is what we do every day, prepare kids for life.”

This tale of a single rescued child hints at some of the reasons for the tiny Nordic nation’s staggering record of education success, a phenomenon that has inspired, baffled and even irked many of America’s parents and educators. Finnish schooling became an unlikely hot topic after the 2010 documentary film Waiting for “Superman” contrasted it with America’s troubled public schools.

“Whatever it takes” is an attitude that drives not just Kirkkojarvi’s 30 teachers, but most of Finland’s 62,000 educators in 3,500 schools from Lapland to Turku—professionals selected from the top 10 percent of the nation’s graduates to earn a required master’s degree in education. Many schools are small enough so that teachers know every student. If one method fails, teachers consult with colleagues to try something else. They seem to relish the challenges. Nearly 30 percent of Finland’s children receive some kind of special help during their first nine years of school. The school where Louhivuori teaches served 240 first through ninth graders last year; and in contrast with Finland’s reputation for ethnic homogeneity, more than half of its 150 elementary-level students are immigrants—from Somalia, Iraq, Russia, Bangladesh, Estonia and Ethiopia, among other nations. “Children from wealthy families with lots of education can be taught by stupid teachers,” Louhivuori said, smiling. “We try to catch the weak students. It’s deep in our thinking.”

The transformation of the Finns’ education system began some 40 years ago as the key propellent of the country’s economic recovery plan. Educators had little idea it was so successful until 2000, when the first results from the Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA), a standardized test given to 15-year-olds in more than 40 global venues, revealed Finnish youth to be the best young readers in the world. Three years later, they led in math. By 2006, Finland was first out of 57 countries (and a few cities) in science. In the 2009 PISA scores released last year, the nation came in second in science, third in reading and sixth in math among nearly half a million students worldwide. “I’m still surprised,” said Arjariita Heikkinen, principal of a Helsinki comprehensive school. “I didn’t realize we were that good.”

In the United States, which has muddled along in the middle for the past decade, government officials have attempted to introduce marketplace competition into public schools. In recent years, a group of Wall Street financiers and philanthropists such as Bill Gates have put money behind private-sector ideas, such as vouchers, data-driven curriculum and charter schools, which have doubled in number in the past decade. President Obama, too, has apparently bet on competition. His Race to the Top initiative invites states to compete for federal dollars using tests and other methods to measure teachers, a philosophy that would not fly in Finland. “I think, in fact, teachers would tear off their shirts,” said Timo Heikkinen, a Helsinki principal with 24 years of teaching experience. “If you only measure the statistics, you miss the human aspect.”

There are no mandated standardized tests in Finland, apart from one exam at the end of students’ senior year in high school. There are no rankings, no comparisons or competition between students, schools or regions. Finland’s schools are publicly funded. The people in the government agencies running them, from national officials to local authorities, are educators, not business people, military leaders or career politicians. Every school has the same national goals and draws from the same pool of university-trained educators. The result is that a Finnish child has a good shot at getting the same quality education no matter whether he or she lives in a rural village or a university town. The differences between weakest and strongest students are the smallest in the world, according to the most recent survey by the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD). “Equality is the most important word in Finnish education. All political parties on the right and left agree on this,” said Olli Luukkainen, president of Finland’s powerful teachers union.

Ninety-three percent of Finns graduate from academic or vocational high schools, 17.5 percentage points higher than the United States, and 66 percent go on to higher education, the highest rate in the European Union. Yet Finland spends about 30 percent less per student than the United States.

Still, there is a distinct absence of chest-thumping among the famously reticent Finns. They are eager to celebrate their recent world hockey championship, but PISA scores, not so much. “We prepare children to learn how to learn, not how to take a test,” said Pasi Sahlberg, a former math and physics teacher who is now in Finland’s Ministry of Education and Culture. “We are not much interested in PISA. It’s not what we are about.”

Maija Rintola stood before her chattering class of twenty-three 7- and 8-year-olds one late April day in Kirkkojarven Koulu. A tangle of multicolored threads topped her copper hair like a painted wig. The 20-year teacher was trying out her look for Vappu, the day teachers and children come to school in riotous costumes to celebrate May Day. The morning sun poured through the slate and lemon linen shades onto containers of Easter grass growing on the wooden sills. Rintola smiled and held up her open hand at a slant—her time-tested “silent giraffe,” which signaled the kids to be quiet. Little hats, coats, shoes stowed in their cubbies, the children wiggled next to their desks in their stocking feet, waiting for a turn to tell their tale from the playground. They had just returned from their regular 15 minutes of playtime outdoors between lessons. “Play is important at this age,” Rintola would later say. “We value play.”

With their wiggles unwound, the students took from their desks little bags of buttons, beans and laminated cards numbered 1 through 20. A teacher’s aide passed around yellow strips representing units of ten. At a smart board at the front of the room, Rintola ushered the class through the principles of base ten. One girl wore cat ears on her head, for no apparent reason. Another kept a stuffed mouse on her desk to remind her of home. Rintola roamed the room helping each child grasp the concepts. Those who finished early played an advanced “nut puzzle” game. After 40 minutes it was time for a hot lunch in the cathedral-like cafeteria.

Teachers in Finland spend fewer hours at school each day and spend less time in classrooms than American teachers. Teachers use the extra time to build curriculums and assess their students. Children spend far more time playing outside, even in the depths of winter. Homework is minimal. Compulsory schooling does not begin until age 7. “We have no hurry,” said Louhivuori. “Children learn better when they are ready. Why stress them out?”

It’s almost unheard of for a child to show up hungry or homeless. Finland provides three years of maternity leave and subsidized day care to parents, and preschool for all 5-year-olds, where the emphasis is on play and socializing. In addition, the state subsidizes parents, paying them around 150 euros per month for every child until he or she turns 17. Ninety-seven percent of 6-year-olds attend public preschool, where children begin some academics. Schools provide food, medical care, counseling and taxi service if needed. Student health care is free.

Even so, Rintola said her children arrived last August miles apart in reading and language levels. By April, nearly every child in the class was reading, and most were writing. Boys had been coaxed into literature with books like Kapteeni Kalsarin (“Captain Underpants”). The school’s special education teacher teamed up with Rintola to teach five children with a variety of behavioral and learning problems. The national goal for the past five years has been to mainstream all children. The only time Rintola’s children are pulled out is for Finnish as a Second Language classes, taught by a teacher with 30 years’ experience and graduate school training.

There are exceptions, though, however rare. One first-grade girl was not in Rintola’s class. The wispy 7-year-old had recently arrived from Thailand speaking not a word of Finnish. She was studying math down the hall in a special “preparing class” taught by an expert in multicultural learning. It is designed to help children keep up with their subjects while they conquer the language. Kirkkojarvi’s teachers have learned to deal with their unusually large number of immigrant students. The city of Espoo helps them out with an extra 82,000 euros a year in “positive discrimination” funds to pay for things like special resource teachers, counselors and six special needs classes.

Rintola will teach the same children next year and possibly the next five years, depending on the needs of the school. “It’s a good system. I can make strong connections with the children,” said Rintola, who was handpicked by Louhivuori 20 years ago. “I understand who they are.” Besides Finnish, math and science, the first graders take music, art, sports, religion and textile handcrafts. English begins in third grade, Swedish in fourth. By fifth grade the children have added biology, geography, history, physics and chemistry.

Not until sixth grade will kids have the option to sit for a district-wide exam, and then only if the classroom teacher agrees to participate. Most do, out of curiosity. Results are not publicized. Finnish educators have a hard time understanding the United States’ fascination with standardized tests. “Americans like all these bars and graphs and colored charts,” Louhivuori teased, as he rummaged through his closet looking for past years’ results. “Looks like we did better than average two years ago,” he said after he found the reports. “It’s nonsense. We know much more about the children than these tests can tell us.”

I had come to Kirkkojarvi to see how the Finnish approach works with students who are not stereotypically blond, blue-eyed and Lutheran. But I wondered if Kirkkojarvi’s success against the odds might be a fluke. Some of the more vocal conservative reformers in America have grown weary of the “We-Love-Finland crowd” or so-called Finnish Envy. They argue that the United States has little to learn from a country of only 5.4 million people—4 percent of them foreign born. Yet the Finns seem to be onto something. Neighboring Norway, a country of similar size, embraces education policies similar to those in the United States. It employs standardized exams and teachers without master’s degrees. And like America, Norway’s PISA scores have been stalled in the middle ranges for the better part of a decade.

To get a second sampling, I headed east from Espoo to Helsinki and a rough neighborhood called Siilitie, Finnish for “Hedgehog Road” and known for having the oldest low-income housing project in Finland. The 50-year-old boxy school building sat in a wooded area, around the corner from a subway stop flanked by gas stations and convenience stores. Half of its 200 first- through ninth-grade students have learning disabilities. All but the most severely impaired are mixed with the general education children, in keeping with Finnish policies.

A class of first graders scampered among nearby pine and birch trees, each holding a stack of the teacher’s homemade laminated “outdoor math” cards. “Find a stick as big as your foot,” one read. “Gather 50 rocks and acorns and lay them out in groups of ten,” read another. Working in teams, the 7- and 8-year-olds raced to see how quickly they could carry out their tasks. Aleksi Gustafsson, whose master’s degree is from Helsinki University, developed the exercise after attending one of the many workshops available free to teachers. “I did research on how useful this is for kids,” he said. “It’s fun for the children to work outside. They really learn with it.”

Gustafsson’s sister, Nana Germeroth, teaches a class of mostly learning-impaired children; Gustafsson’s students have no learning or behavioral issues. The two combined most of their classes this year to mix their ideas and abilities along with the children’s varying levels. “We know each other really well,” said Germeroth, who is ten years older. “I know what Aleksi is thinking.”

The school receives 47,000 euros a year in positive discrimination money to hire aides and special education teachers, who are paid slightly higher salaries than classroom teachers because of their required sixth year of university training and the demands of their jobs. There is one teacher (or assistant) in Siilitie for every seven students.

In another classroom, two special education teachers had come up with a different kind of team teaching. Last year, Kaisa Summa, a teacher with five years’ experience, was having trouble keeping a gaggle of first-grade boys under control. She had looked longingly into Paivi Kangasvieri’s quiet second-grade room next door, wondering what secrets the 25-year-veteran colleague could share. Each had students of wide-ranging abilities and special needs. Summa asked Kangasvieri if they might combine gymnastics classes in hopes good behavior might be contagious. It worked. This year, the two decided to merge for 16 hours a week. “We complement each other,” said Kangasvieri, who describes herself as a calm and firm “father” to Summa’s warm mothering. “It is cooperative teaching at its best,” she says.

Every so often, principal Arjariita Heikkinen told me, the Helsinki district tries to close the school because the surrounding area has fewer and fewer children, only to have people in the community rise up to save it. After all, nearly 100 percent of the school’s ninth graders go on to high schools. Even many of the most severely disabled will find a place in Finland’s expanded system of vocational high schools, which are attended by 43 percent of Finnish high-school students, who prepare to work in restaurants, hospitals, construction sites and offices. “We help situate them in the right high school,” said then deputy principal Anne Roselius. “We are interested in what will become of them in life.”

Finland’s schools were not always a wonder. Until the late 1960s, Finns were still emerging from the cocoon of Soviet influence. Most children left public school after six years. (The rest went to private schools, academic grammar schools or folk schools, which tended to be less rigorous.) Only the privileged or lucky got a quality education.

The landscape changed when Finland began trying to remold its bloody, fractured past into a unified future. For hundreds of years, these fiercely independent people had been wedged between two rival powers—the Swedish monarchy to the west and the Russian czar to the east. Neither Scandinavian nor Baltic, Finns were proud of their Nordic roots and a unique language only they could love (or pronounce). In 1809, Finland was ceded to Russia by the Swedes, who had ruled its people some 600 years. The czar created the Grand Duchy of Finland, a quasi-state with constitutional ties to the empire. He moved the capital from Turku, near Stockholm, to Helsinki, closer to St. Petersburg. After the czar fell to the Bolsheviks in 1917, Finland declared its independence, pitching the country into civil war. Three more wars between 1939 and 1945—two with the Soviets, one with Germany—left the country scarred by bitter divisions and a punishing debt owed to the Russians. “Still we managed to keep our freedom,” said Pasi Sahlberg, a director general in the Ministry of Education and Culture.

In 1963, the Finnish Parliament made the bold decision to choose public education as its best shot at economic recovery. “I call this the Big Dream of Finnish education,” said Sahlberg, whose upcoming book, Finnish Lessons , is scheduled for release in October. “It was simply the idea that every child would have a very good public school. If we want to be competitive, we need to educate everybody. It all came out of a need to survive."

Practically speaking—and Finns are nothing if not practical—the decision meant that goal would not be allowed to dissipate into rhetoric. Lawmakers landed on a deceptively simple plan that formed the foundation for everything to come. Public schools would be organized into one system of comprehensive schools, or peruskoulu , for ages 7 through 16. Teachers from all over the nation contributed to a national curriculum that provided guidelines, not prescriptions. Besides Finnish and Swedish (the country’s second official language), children would learn a third language (English is a favorite) usually beginning at age 9. Resources were distributed equally. As the comprehensive schools improved, so did the upper secondary schools (grades 10 through 12). The second critical decision came in 1979, when reformers required that every teacher earn a fifth-year master’s degree in theory and practice at one of eight state universities—at state expense. From then on, teachers were effectively granted equal status with doctors and lawyers. Applicants began flooding teaching programs, not because the salaries were so high but because autonomy and respect made the job attractive. In 2010, some 6,600 applicants vied for 660 primary school training slots, according to Sahlberg. By the mid-1980s, a final set of initiatives shook the classrooms free from the last vestiges of top-down regulation. Control over policies shifted to town councils. The national curriculum was distilled into broad guidelines. National math goals for grades one through nine, for example, were reduced to a neat ten pages. Sifting and sorting children into so-called ability groupings was eliminated. All children—clever or less so—were to be taught in the same classrooms, with lots of special teacher help available to make sure no child really would be left behind. The inspectorate closed its doors in the early ’90s, turning accountability and inspection over to teachers and principals. “We have our own motivation to succeed because we love the work,” said Louhivuori. “Our incentives come from inside.”

To be sure, it was only in the past decade that Finland’s international science scores rose. In fact, the country’s earliest efforts could be called somewhat Stalinistic. The first national curriculum, developed in the early ’70s, weighed in at 700 stultifying pages. Timo Heikkinen, who began teaching in Finland’s public schools in 1980 and is now principal of Kallahti Comprehensive School in eastern Helsinki, remembers when most of his high-school teachers sat at their desks dictating to the open notebooks of compliant children.

And there are still challenges. Finland’s crippling financial collapse in the early ’90s brought fresh economic challenges to this “confident and assertive Eurostate,” as David Kirby calls it in A Concise History of Finland . At the same time, immigrants poured into the country, clustering in low-income housing projects and placing added strain on schools. A recent report by the Academy of Finland warned that some schools in the country’s large cities were becoming more skewed by race and class as affluent, white Finns choose schools with fewer poor, immigrant populations.

A few years ago, Kallahti principal Timo Heikkinen began noticing that, increasingly, affluent Finnish parents, perhaps worried about the rising number of Somali children at Kallahti, began sending their children to one of two other schools nearby. In response, Heikkinen and his teachers designed new environmental science courses that take advantage of the school’s proximity to the forest. And a new biology lab with 3-D technology allows older students to observe blood flowing inside the human body.

It has yet to catch on, Heikkinen admits. Then he added: “But we are always looking for ways to improve.”

In other words, whatever it takes.

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LynNell Hancock | READ MORE

LynNell Hancock writes about education and teaches at the Columbia Graduate School of Journalism.

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Stuart Conway is a photographer based in southeast England.

20+ Cool Things to Know about the Finnish Education System

Finland’s education system fascinates most people interested in the best approaches to learning. Our schools are known for high-quality teaching and inclusive learning environments and aim to offer each student the same opportunities to succeed, whatever their background.

In this article, I will explore some of the features that have set the Finnish education system apart and what is so cool about it that people worldwide want to study it.

Table of Contents

What makes Finland’s education system successful?

What is the finnish approach to early childhood education, what is the finnish approach to education in comprehensive school, how long is the school day in finland, what is the typical school day like in finland, do finnish students really have little to no homework, what is the role of standardized testing in finnish education, how are students assessed in finland’s education system, what subjects are taught in finnish schools, what are the differences between finnish and american education systems, how do finnish schools accommodate students with special needs, is education free in finland, how are finnish schools funded, how much do finnish teachers get paid, teacher training in finland, what is the dropout rate in finland’s education system, what is the literacy rate in finland, why is finland’s education system considered one of the best in the world.

The idea that Finland’s education system outperforms many others in the world comes from excellent outcomes like success in the international PISA test.

In previous years, Finnish pupils and students have done remarkably well in these tests despite the lack of standardized testing in Finnish schools. At the same time, they enjoy more freedom and less homework than many of their counterparts.

This has been a subject of a lot of debate. Is the success because of well-trained and motivated teachers who are valued? Is it because of the national curriculum?

According to the World Economic Forum, Finland’s education system is the best in the world , at least partly because of

No standardized testing
Teacher training and requirements
Making the basics a priority
Starting age

You can dive deep into the topic as there are a number of books available and countless expert opinions you can explore. But these things are something most Finns can agree are good about the Finnish system.

One of the things many Finns remember from their early school years and kindergarten is playing outside.

Serious school work starts relatively late in Finland, and early childhood education (ECEC) focuses on the right to play, learn, and participate.

Children usually start their first school year at the age 7. They then continue to attend comprehensive school between the ages 7-16 through classes 1-9.

All municipalities in Finland offer preschool education, which consists of at least 700 hours of learning skills in creativity, language, and other areas that will help at school. There are no specific subjects or tests but different competence areas. 4 hours of preschool education a day is provided for free at kindergartens for every 5- and 6-year-old.

Learning at this level differs greatly from countries where school starts at ages 4-5. For example, in the UK, 6-year-olds take part in national curriculum assessments, while Finnish children don’t generally take part in national tests during comprehensive school.

In Finland, all children must receive comprehensive education, and this consists of years 1 to 9 of comprehensive school.

Recent changes now require students to also attend school until they either complete their secondary education like upper secondary school or vocational training in a vocational college, or turn 18, which ever comes first.

The vast majority of schools in Finland, including around 80 private schools, follow the national core curriculum. Pupils attend a local school in their assigned catchment area, and “school shopping” is harder and less common than in some other countries.

The purpose of basic education is “to enable pupils to evolve into humane and ethically responsible members of society as well as to provide them with the knowledge and skills needed in life”, according to the ministry of education and culture . Comprehensive school covers a total of 20 subjects, and learning some languages is also compulsory.

How does Finland’s education system compare to other countries?

In general, the Finnish education system stands out because of

Master’s level teacher training
More chances to play and take breaks
Shorter school days and less homework
No fees, free meals and free books

There are also downsides. Since students learn in the same groups regardless of being talented in a subject, some find there are no opportunities to make fast progress. It is often possible to attend a weighted-curriculum education emphasizing languages, maths, music, or arts, for example.

The same goes for children requiring more time or attention to help them learn. In many cases where the child has special needs, they can get a personal assistant.

The maximum length of a Finnish school day is determined by grade. For 1st and 2nd grade, when the children are 7 and 8 years old, they can have a maximum of five hours of school a day. From there on, the maximum is 7 hours a day, with a little extra allowed if they attend a class that follows a weighted curriculum.

There are also guidelines for the minimum amount of teaching each student has the right to receive weekly.

Each lesson consists of around 45 minutes of teaching. There are breaks between learning, but they can have different lengths. 15-minutes between lessons is common, and the lunch break is at least 30 minutes long.

For your 15-minute break, you always head outdoors – unless it’s -15 degrees Celsius or colder. I have fond memories throughout the primary school of how fun the breaks were. Playing outdoor games or soccer until the bell rang.

A typical school day usually starts sometime between 8 am and 9 am. After some lessons and a few short breaks, a free lunch is served, usually between 11 and 12. Lunch breaks are usually long enough for the children to play outside after lunch.

Lessons continue into the afternoon before it’s time to go home. Cities provide after-school activities for young pupils.

If you live far away from your school, the school provides you with free bus or group taxi rides that take you closer to home.

Despite what you might have heard, Finnish pupils get homework.

It may be a little less than in some countries, with some studies citing an average of 30 minutes of homework a day. Since the days are relatively short, there is plenty of time to get it done before hobbies and play.

Finnish students usually take their first standardized test, the matriculation examination, at 18 and only if they attended an upper secondary school and in their chosen topics.

Together with subject-specific entrance examinations, the results from this examination are used to apply to study a University degree.

That doesn’t mean that pupils have no tests, though.

Since the schools follow the national core curriculum, students have regular tests and exams based on learning goals.

Students get grades on each subject they study based on their performance throughout the year from 4th grade onward. For the youngest pupils, the teacher usually writes notes on how they did at regular intervals.

At the end of year 9, students get a final grade for each subject they studied. These grades are used to apply to upper secondary schools and vocational training.

All pupils in Finland study

Finnish or Swedish (mother tongue and literature)
The other national language (Swedish or Finnish)
At least one other foreign language
Environmental studies
Health education and physical education
Religion or ethics, history, and social studies
Mathematics, biology, chemistry, physics, and geography
Music, visual arts, crafts, and home economics

These differences are often mentioned about Finland:

Finns start school at age 7
Less homework and shorter school days
Goal of testing is to see if the child needs help with learning, not comparisons
No great differences between schools
Schools are publicly funded and free to attend
Schools follow the national core curriculum
Books and free lunch provided

Some other differences that might be interesting include that teacher requirements in the US vary from state to state. In contrast, Finnish teachers need a specific Master’s degree and most people value the profession. Only 34% of US teachers feel the general public values their profession.

How does Finland’s education system promote equity and equality?

Finland’s education system is based on the idea that everyone should be able to have a basic level of skills and learning regardless of their background.

That’s why schools are publicly funded, and students get books, free school meals, and, in some cases, even devices they might need for their studies. Finnish schools don’t have school uniforms.

There are guidelines for what the schools and cities need to provide to help children with special needs, but each case is assessed based on the circumstances. The aim is to provide support while the child attends normal classes. Different levels of support can be arranged depending on what the situation calls for.

Primary education is free in Finland. Higher education is also free, but students have to do well in the matriculation examination and often take an entrance examination to be accepted to study for a degree. Students from outside the EU have to pay fees for higher education programmes.

Finnish schools are publicly funded through the government, municipalities, and the European Union (mostly higher education).

What is the role of teachers in Finland’s education system?

Finnish teachers are valued professionals with Master’s degrees and meet the requirements to teach their subjects. The degree focuses on skills for independent problem-solving.

Teachers design the classes they teach according to the national core curriculum. Their role is to support and advance the development, learning, and skills of children and young people.

The average salary of a teacher in Finland ranges from 3680 to 4090 € depending on what grades they teach. The number of years they have worked affects how much they are paid, and 10% make 2990 € or less a month.

Most teachers in Finland have long paid vacation times: 14 weeks annually.

There are two routes to becoming a teacher in Finland. You can start studying the subject matter at University and add pedagogical studies to become qualified to teach that specific subject or you can apply directly to study to become a subject teacher.

The same Master’s level education is required to become a classroom teacher for a comprehensive school. To teach at the preschool level, teachers must have a bachelor’s degree in educational science.

Finland’s education system became well known after success in the PISA surveys from 2000 onward. While the results have declined since then – some say partly due to challenges like digitalization which takes some time to adapt to – there are still many positive outcomes worth pointing out.

For comprehensive school, the number is below 1% compared to 25% in the US.

Finland’s literacy rate has been 100% for over 15-year-olds. Finland has also been ranked as the most literate nation in the world.

Do you have more questions about Finland’s education system? I will answer them in the comments!

Here are some other facts about Finland that you might find interesting:

Finnish Culture: Discovering Everything You Need to Know

50 Cool Things Finland is Known for

Moving to Finland: Living in the 20 Largest Cities

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About Varpu I’m the founder of Her Finland. I love cultural tidbits, aha moments, Finnish folklore, and cinnamon buns. My newest interest is learning bird songs. Read more about me..

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Saturday 15th of July 2023

Congratulations, Varpu! I'm excited for you, and I know your students will be lucky to have you as a teacher. It makes sense that the frequent and lengthy breaks outside would be conducive to learning - our brains need relaxation time in order to really absorb new information. Sadly, here in the U.S., our students don't get as many or as lengthy breaks, especially in areas where principals/administrators are afraid long breaks might give students time to start fights or misbehaving. I think our students' brains might be a little stressed out.

I'm a science teacher myself, having taught science in elementary school, middle school, and high school (biology), and I have a master's degree. I was wondering whether my degree would transfer over there. However, I am more interested in teaching younger kids these days, and I'm working on my multiple subject credential, as well as taking early childhood education (ECE) classes. Do you think the Finnish government would accept this kind of training from the U.S.? I would love to know your opinion!

Wednesday 12th of July 2023

I know several Finnish teachers and every one one of them were of good reputation and wanted the best for their students.Here in the United states,many states have looked at the Finnish school model,but I can bet the teachers union would not go along with it.

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Finland’s educational system and why is it so successful?

Imagine going to a school where the amount of homework that you had was minimal and you would have almost no exams at all? A school where you can wake up later, arrive home earlier AND have 15-minute breaks after each 45-minute lesson? Seems too good to be true, right? But it IS true, and this is how schools operate in Finland. You must probably be thinking; “I have never heard of a school that functions that way, there must be something there”, funny thing, is that there isn’t. Finland has an educational system very different from what we are accustomed to, but that doesn’t mean that children won’t learn because they practically have no work to do. In fact, Finland is considered the most well-developed education worldwide nowadays; and I’ll tell you why.

For decades now, Finland has initiated several simple changes that have revolutionised its educational system; and as a consequence of all these large-scale changes, it has become the 8th most educated country in the world, and has the highest ranking in High School Completion Rate. Yet, their immense success has not come only from limiting the number of tests and homework and making teachers have less time for work. Their success came from profound research. They were inspired by other educational systems, listened to the voice of the parents and teachers, but most importantly, always kept in mind their main goal: to stay consistent so that all children are provided with equal opportunities and learning . The nation is well known for its holistic teaching environment and common-sense practices that aim for equality rather than excellence. Due to this way of education, Finnish students have an extremely healthy balance between school and personal life, allowing them to participate in more extra-curricular activities. Many factors differentiate Finland’s educational system from other systems worldwide and though they may seem small, they created extremely strong and talented students who have both a high reading proficiency and life satisfaction. Let’s take a look at them!

The schools are publicly funded

The people in the government agencies that are running Finnish schools aren’t business people, politicians or military leaders; they are educators and know what they are doing. All over Finland, all schools have the same national goals and extracts from the same pool of university-trained educators; that way, a teenager that studies in a rural area is receiving the same education as a teenager living in the urban zone.

They have no standardized testing

In most schools around the world, students are much more worried about having excellent grades on exams than actually learning the subject. Because of that, students will learn how to cram just to pass the test and actually learning is out of the question for them. Finland has no standardized test, the only mandatory exam is at the end of compulsory school when the pupil is 16. Students are graded on an individual basis and the grading systems are set by their teacher; they formulate their grading systems for the students rather than relying on exams. Instead of taking tests, the pupil’s learning is assessed through various qualitative methods which focus on their overall development rather than their memorization skills and quantitative results. Learning is different and personalized for each student; teachers do that by empowering students’ strengths and supporting their challenges. The students are deeply encouraged to follow their personalized learning path through a system that deeply helps them.

How Finnish people recognize their teachers

In Finland, the teachers are extremely respected and valued; their “status” is at the same level as doctors and lawyers. The teachers are always extremely educated and committed to their work. Finns pay very high respect and trust to the teachers. What is also different in Finland are the requirements they need to have in order to become a teacher. All teachers must have a master’s degree before exercising their profession. Teaching programs are the most strict and selective professional schools in the whole country, and only 10% of the applicants to the teaching programs are accepted.

Cooperation and NOT Competition

In Finland, the schools do not care about “artificial merit-based” systems; there are no lists of top teachers or even top schools and no rankings or comparisons. They state that “ it is not a competition, cooperation is the norm ”.

Making the basics an opportunity

As previously mentioned, the educational program in Finland aims to make the schools a more equitable place. They go by the saying that “ Education should be an instrument to balance out social inequality ”. Their priorities are:

All students receive free school meals;

Ease access to free health care;

Psychological counselling;

Individual guidance;

And taxi service if needed.

Starting school at an older age

Pupils start compulsory school at the age of seven. There are only nine years of obligatory school for Finnish students. After the age of 16, it is optional. Finland’s education system is sorted into:

( Optional) The ECEC (Early Childhood Education and Care), combines education, teaching, and a goal-oriented manner.

Their goal is to promote children’s development, health and wellbeing as well as to improve children’s opportunity for learning.

Kids learn through playing.

( Optional ) Pre-Primary Education (1-year duration for 6-year-olds)

( Mandatory ) Basic Education (9 years duration for children aged 7 to 16)

( Optional ) Upper Secondary Education

( Optional ) Higher Education

( Optional ) Adult Education And Training

Covers education leading to a qualification, degree studies, training preparing for competence-based qualifications, degree studies, and further continuing education updating and extending the professional skills, etc.

Students wake up later in the morning

Studies have shown that early starting times at school can be detrimental to the student’s health and well-being. Schools in Finland usually start at 9:00-9:45 and end at 14:00-14:45! Honestly, this is a dream come true. As if it couldn’t get better; there are 15-20 minute breaks every 45-minute lesson; isn’t this the BEST?

Consistency of teachers in classes

Students tend to have the same teachers throughout their school years; by doing that, the teacher is able to create a bond with their students and take on the role of a tutor or even a family member. The teacher learns the positives and negatives of the students and how to specifically work with them. As much as I like this, imagine being stuck 6 years with a teacher you can’t get along with? In a blink of an eye, the dream switches to a nightmare.

A more relaxed atmosphere

Students only have a couple of classes a day, and a lot of time to enjoy recreational activities and relax. As explained previously, the 15-20 minute breaks have the aim to make the students relax a bit, get some air and stretch. Children spend much more of their time playing outside even in winter times, that is because Finland strongly follows their “belief” which is “ learning through play ”. All the activities are planned around the holistic wellbeing of being a child, supporting their learning journey. The teachers also work in a relaxed atmosphere; they only spend around 4 hours a day teaching. They spend their extra time building curriculum and assessing their students. The Finnish teachers also have their own rooms where they can relax, socialize or prepare for the day.

Less homework and outside work are needed

According to the OECD (Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development), students in Finland have the least amount of outside work and homework than any other student in other countries around the world. According to the same source, the differences between the extremely talented and strong students to the ones that still require some help or development is the smallest in the whole world. 93% of Finnish students graduate from high school while only 75% of students in the USA graduate. Students in Finland spend around half an hour at night working on school activities; the pupils are getting everything they need to get done in school without adding the pressures that come with excelling academically. By not having to stress about grades and a ton of homework, they can focus on their true task: learning and growing as human beings.

To conclude, Finland, even with a crazy educational system that we are not accustomed to, managed to be one of the countries with the best education. This system has brought a lot of success to the students, and all of them receive the same amount of education. All Finnish students speak 2-3 languages and have opportunities to learn new things such as baking, poetry, and music. It seems weird how a school can operate like this, and it would be interesting to see this system spreading throughout the world. I believe that with this “policy”, students wouldn’t have that many emotional problems and suffer from stress with the amount of work and time they stay at school. Yet, this reform is complicated and may take time. In addition to that, there are many reforms that must be done not only in the educational sector for this to happen, so it is very complex to make all countries function this way. But, fingers crossed; we can never lose hope!

https://www.weforum.org/agenda/2018/09/10-reasons-why-finlands-education-system-is-the-best-in-the-world

https://okm.fi/en/education-system

https://www.smithsonianmag.com/innovation/why-are-finlands-schools-successful-49859555/

https://www.newnordic.school/news/blog-finland-education-system

https://leverageedu.com/blog/finland-education-system/

https://in-finland.education/homework-in-finland-school/

https://lead-prep.org/2017/08/there-is-no-homework-in-finland/

https://theprint.in/india/education/20-hours-a-week-no-homework-thats-the-finland-school-system-rss-chief-wants-in-india/278603/

Is there homework in Finland?

Exploring Finland’s Unique Education System: Is There Really No Homework?

As a Travel Writer, I have had the opportunity to visit numerous countries and learn about their diverse cultures and traditions. One country that has always fascinated me is Finland, known for its breathtaking landscapes, saunas, and of course, its exceptional education system. Finland consistently ranks among the top countries in the world in terms of education, but what sets it apart is its approach to homework.

The truth is that there is nearly no homework in the country with one of the top education systems in the world. Finnish people believe that besides homework, there are many more things that can improve a child’s performance in school, such as having dinner with their families, exercising, or getting a good night’s sleep. Rather than burdening students with hours of homework, the Finnish education system focuses on hands-on learning, collaborative projects, and promoting a healthy work-life balance.

What country has the most homework?

While Finland embraces a homework-free approach, there are countries that have a different perspective. One such country is China, specifically Shanghai, which leads the world in PISA test scores. Students in Shanghai do a whopping 14 hours of homework a week, on average. Wealthier students there even do 16 hours. This stark difference in homework load raises questions about the effectiveness of excessive homework and its impact on students’ well-being.

How long is a school day in Finland?

Typically, the Finnish school day starts anywhere from 9 to 9:45 a.m., and students spend only about five hours a day in the classroom. What’s more, Finnish students typically have little to no homework. With shorter school days and minimal homework, Finnish students enjoy a well-rounded education that allows for ample time for extracurricular activities, hobbies, and social interactions.

Is school in Finland stressful?

Finland’s education system is considered an excellent example of stress-free learning. With the Finnish education model, students do not have to face too much homework. The educational system clearly understands the importance of free time and play for children’s development. By prioritizing well-being and a balanced lifestyle, Finnish students are able to thrive academically without the undue stress that excessive homework can cause.

Is Finland school easy?

According to the OECD, students in Finland have the least amount of outside work and homework than any other student in the world. They spend only half an hour a night working on assignments from school. Finnish students also do not have tutors, highlighting the confidence in the quality of education provided within the school system. Despite the minimal homework load, Finnish students consistently outperform their peers in international assessments, proving that a different approach to education can be highly effective.

Education in Finland: No Homework, No Standardized Testing

In Finland, the emphasis is not on homework and standardized tests. Instead, the focus is on providing quality education through innovative teaching methods and nurturing student creativity. Finland’s approach to education includes methods such as hands-on learning, project-based assessments, and individualized attention.

Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs) about Finland’s Education System

1. is it illegal to not go to school in finland.

According to Finnish law, students must attend school unless they have been granted permission to be absent. Students are expected to diligently fulfill their duties and behave appropriately.

2. Does Finland have free education?

In Finland, education is free at all levels for pupils and students. There are no tuition fees from pre-primary education until higher education.

3. How long is a school day in Finland?

A typical school day in Finland starts at around 9 to 9:45 a.m. and ends at 2:45 p.m., allowing students ample time for extracurricular activities and personal interests.

4. Are students in Finland happy?

While a significant percentage of Finnish students express satisfaction with life, as they progress through higher grades, the overall satisfaction decreases slightly. However, Finland’s education system still ranks highly in terms of student happiness and well-being.

5. Why is Finland ranked number one in education?

Finland’s success in education can be attributed to various factors, including respecting teachers, assigning less homework, offering more recess time, and keeping standardized testing to a minimum. The emphasis on creating an environment conducive to learning and personal development plays a crucial role in Finland’s educational achievements.

6. Do students in Finland wear uniforms?

No, Finnish students do not wear uniforms. Public schools in Finland often have no strict policies regarding personal preferences such as hair color. Additionally, computers and iPads are considered essential learning tools in Finnish schools.

7. Does Finland have summer break?

Yes, Finnish schools follow a traditional academic calendar with a summer break. Finnish kids typically have about 10 weeks of summer holidays in addition to other holidays throughout the year.

8. What age do kids start school in Finland?

Almost all children aged 6 participate in pre-primary education in Finland. Compulsory school starts at age 7. Teachers in pre-primary education hold a Bachelor’s degree, ensuring a high standard of early education.

Finland’s unique education system, with its minimal emphasis on homework, provides valuable insights into alternative approaches to education. By prioritizing the overall well-being of students and fostering a love for learning, Finland has created an educational environment that continues to inspire other countries. So, if you’re looking for a country that values work-life balance and promotes innovative teaching methods, Finland should be at the top of your list.

About The Author

Everett Forbes

Teachers and trust: cornerstones of the Finnish education system

Jaime saavedra, hanna alasuutari, marcela gutierrez bernal.

Human Development Director for Latin America and the Caribbean at the World Bank

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Lessons from Finland: What Other Countries Can Learn

September 4, 2023

Finland, a small Nordic country in Northern Europe, has garnered international attention for its remarkable education system. Over the years, it has consistently ranked at or near the top of global education rankings, such as the Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA). What makes Finland’s education system so unique, and what lessons can other countries draw from its success? In this blog, we will delve into the key aspects of Finland’s education system and discuss what other nations can learn from it.

Equal Access to Quality Education

One of the most significant lessons from Finland is its commitment to providing equal access to quality education for all students. Finland offers free education, including college and university, to all its citizens and residents. This commitment to equitable access ensures that socio-economic status does not dictate a child’s educational opportunities. Other countries can learn from this by investing in public education and prioritizing equal access to quality schooling.

Teacher Training and Professionalism

Finnish teachers are highly trained professionals who are required to hold a master’s degree in education. The rigorous selection process for teacher education programs ensures that only the most qualified candidates become educators. Additionally, teaching is a respected and well-compensated profession in Finland. Countries around the world can learn from Finland’s emphasis on teacher training, professionalism, and adequate compensation to attract and retain top talent in education.

Student-Centric Learning

The Finnish education system places a strong emphasis on student-centric learning. Students are encouraged to explore topics that interest them, and there is less standardized testing and homework than in many other countries. This approach fosters a love for learning and helps students develop critical thinking skills. Other nations can take inspiration from this and strive to create environments that prioritize students’ holistic development and curiosity.

Reduced Standardized Testing

Unlike many countries, Finland does not rely heavily on standardized testing. Instead, it focuses on continuous assessment and evaluation by teachers. This approach reduces stress on students and allows teachers to tailor their instruction to individual student needs. Countries with an excessive focus on standardized testing can learn from Finland’s approach to create a less stressful and more effective learning environment.

Shorter School Days and Less Homework

Finnish students enjoy shorter school days and less homework compared to their counterparts in many other countries. This approach prioritizes a healthy work-life balance and gives students time for extracurricular activities, hobbies, and family life. Other nations can consider adjusting their school schedules to prioritize student well-being and overall development.

Support for Students with Special Needs

Finland places a strong emphasis on supporting students with special needs. Inclusion is a core principle of its education system, and students with disabilities are provided with the necessary resources and support to succeed in mainstream classrooms. This inclusive approach sets an example for other countries to ensure that all students receive the support they need to thrive in education.

Trust in Teachers

Finland’s education system trusts teachers to make decisions about curriculum and assessment. Teachers have autonomy in the classroom, which allows them to adapt their teaching methods to best meet their students’ needs. Trusting and respecting teachers as professionals is a lesson that can benefit education systems worldwide.

Focus on Well-Being and Mental Health

Finland recognizes the importance of student well-being and mental health. Schools in Finland prioritize creating a supportive and positive learning environment that addresses the emotional and psychological needs of students. Other countries can learn from this approach and invest in mental health support for students to ensure their overall well-being.

Collaboration over Competition

Unlike some education systems that emphasize competition between schools and students, Finland promotes collaboration. Schools in Finland share resources and best practices, reducing disparities between schools and ensuring that all students have access to quality education. This collaborative approach can inspire other nations to prioritize cooperation over competition.

Parental Involvement and Support

Finnish parents are actively involved in their children’s education, but they are not burdened with excessive homework monitoring. The education system trusts parents to support their children’s learning journey without micromanaging their involvement. This balance between parental support and independence can serve as a valuable lesson for other countries.

Finland’s education system offers a wealth of valuable lessons for other countries looking to improve their own systems. From equal access to quality education and teacher professionalism to student-centric learning and a focus on well-being, Finland’s approach to education prioritizes the holistic development of students. By studying and adapting these principles, nations around the world can work towards creating more equitable, effective, and student-centered education systems for the benefit of their future generations.

If you’d like to explore more about Finland’s education system and its principles, you contact Finland Education Hub.

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Welcome to r/Finland, the English language Subreddit dedicated to all things related to Finland. Here, every active user enjoys full democratic rights and serves as a moderator. Check out Finlandit.github.io for recent community moderator actions, and join the discussion on Sopuli.xyz, the Finland-hosted Lemmy instance—a Reddit alternative.

Misconceptions About Homework in Finland

I’ve been seeing all over the internet that there is no homework in Finland. Even if you google it the answer is that there is no homework in Finland. But I live in Finland and I defidently have homework. Where is this misconception coming from? Like we don’t have that much homework but its still homework.

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IMAGES

There’s No Homework in Finland. Which countries have the best education
No Tests, No Homework! Here's How Finland Has Emerged As A Global
School System in Finland
Homework in Finland School
Studying in Finland: Is it Worth it and Why?
The Finnish education system & education services and solutions

VIDEO

When students don’t do there homework #funny #comedy
How Does Finland’s Education System Outperform Most Others Worldwide?
No Homework at Finland schools
PIV your kid rips there homework because they didn’t want to do it #shorts
How Asian got there homework 💩💩💩😜😜😜
What Happens When

COMMENTS

Why do Finnish pupils succeed with less homework?
There is little homework, compared with UK schools, and there is no culture of extra private tuition. A key concept in the Finnish school system, says Mr Tuominen, is "trust". Parents trust ...
No Tests, No Homework! Here's How Finland Has Emerged As A Global
Finland schools begin from 9.30 am as research in World Economic Forum has indicated that schools starting at an early age is detrimental to their health and maturation. The school ends by mostly 2 pm. Lastly, there is no homework or surprise test given to students in Finland.
The truth about Finland's great schools: Yes, kids do get homework, and
Finland's school system is regarded as one of the world's more successful. ... You can find stories on the Internet saying Finnish kids don't get any homework. Nope. ... American author William ...
Homework in Finland School
Though not in Finland. The truth is that there is nearly no homework in the country with one of the top education systems in the world. Finnish people believe that besides homework, there are many more things that can improve child's performance in school, such as having dinner with their families, exercising or getting a good night's sleep.
10 reasons why Finland's education system is the best in the world
There is a general trend in what Finland is doing with its schools. Less stress, less unneeded regimentation and more caring. ... Less homework and outside work required. According to the OECD, students in Finland have the least amount of outside work and homework than any other student in the world. They spend only half an hour a night working ...
27 Surprising Finnish Education System Facts and Statistics
Finland Education Curriculum #18 Finnish Students have less homework than any other student on the planet. Even with fewer school hours, they are still getting everything they need to be done whilst at school. This, in turn, builds on a Finnish child's ability to grow and learn into a happy and responsible adult. #19 All classes are mixed ...
Unlocking Finland's Secret
The Role of Homework in Finland: Finland takes a remarkably different approach to homework compared to many other countries. In Finnish schools, the emphasis is not on the quantity but on the quality of homework. Instead of assigning excessive amounts of homework, Finnish educators focus on promoting meaningful and purposeful assignments that ...
Opinion: Finland's education system breaks every rule
The homework load for children in Finland varies by teacher, but is lighter overall than most other developed countries. This insight is supported by research, which has found little academic benefit in childhood for any more than brief sessions of homework until around high school. ... there's little to learn here. But Finland's success is ...
The Finnish education system
Finnish legislation guides comprehensive education. National curriculum bases and local curriculums are also in use. Comprehensive education is organised by municipalities and is free of charge for families. There is at least 20 hours of tuition per week for first and second grades and more for higher grades.
Why Are Finland's Schools Successful?
Why Are Finland's Schools Successful? | Smithsonian
20+ Cool Things to Know about the Finnish Education System
In general, the Finnish education system stands out because of. Master's level teacher training. More chances to play and take breaks. Shorter school days and less homework. No fees, free meals and free books. No standardized testing. There are also downsides.
The Finnish Education System's Holistic Approach to ...
Finland's education system has consistently been lauded for its student-centric focus, equitable practices, and emphasis on student well-being. ... Minimal Homework Policy. ... There is only one ...
There's No Homework in Finland
There's No Homework in Finland. Which countries have the best education system and why? Arpin Gajjar · Follow. Published in. Students For The Future · 3 min read · Oct 17, 2016--Listen. Share ...
Finland's educational system and why is it so successful?
After the age of 16, it is optional. Finland's education system is sorted into: (Optional) The ECEC (Early Childhood Education and Care), combines education, teaching, and a goal-oriented manner. Their goal is to promote children's development, health and wellbeing as well as to improve children's opportunity for learning.
Homework: Finland Does It Better (Learning World S4E1, 1/3)
The Finnish school system has proven to be efficient and results in the Pisa tests conducted by OECD repetitively show that Finland is among the top 5 countr...
The magic of education in Finland
All teachers have a Master's degree. There is no student testing. There are no school inspections or rankings. Students have little homework and teachers work few hours. Teachers are trusted professionals with full autonomy in the classroom. My study tour to Finland in September 2015 convinced me that this formula is indeed magic. Why?
Is there homework in Finland?
Finland consistently ranks among the top countries in the world in terms of education, but what sets it apart is its approach to homework. The truth is that there is nearly no homework in the country with one of the top education systems in the world. Finnish people believe that besides homework, there are many more things that can improve a ...
Teachers and trust: cornerstones of the Finnish education system
1. Teachers' prestige, selection and training. In Finland, teachers are highly valued. The teaching career is prestigious, demanding, and reserved for the most talented and hard-working. Only one fifth of all applicants to primary teacher education programs in Finnish universities are admitted.
Lessons from Finland: What Other Countries Can Learn
Finland, a small Nordic country in Northern Europe, has garnered international attention for its remarkable education system. ... Students are encouraged to explore topics that interest them, and there is less standardized testing and homework than in many other countries. This approach fosters a love for learning and helps students develop ...
Misconceptions About Homework in Finland : r/Finland
So not really homework. It took maybe 5 minutes per class. Also this is the reason why Finnish kids suck at mathematics, they don't get enough repetition in the basic stuff to learn it properly. There should be so much excercise that you know it without thinking before moving on.
Why Finland's schools are top-notch (Opinion)
Schooldays are also shorter in Finland than in the United States, and primary schools keep the homework load to a minimum so students have time for their own hobbies and friends when school is over.
The key to the nation's success
"Homework takes about an hour and half a day, but before tests I study longer. I don't usually need my parents' help to do my homework." Oona's school days last five to seven hours. Each morning and afternoon includes a 15-minute recess, and halfway through the day there is a half-hour lunch break.
California's latest mad Democrat plan… banning homework
In fact, several countries have promised to "ban" homework in some form, at least. Finland - which has one of the best education systems in the world - has pledged to phase it out ...