Advantages and disadvantages of Finnish educational system.

I)

Advantages:

A. Condensed and high quality education: Primal education in

Finland last 9 year, begins with joining to school when kids are 7
years old, and they finish school when they are 16.
During the first 6 years of education the students receive the
information of all their subjects by only one teacher, and in their last
three years there is a teacher for each subject (each teacher
specialized in his/her area).
Students schedule starts at 8:30 or 9:00 am and finishes at 15:00
pm, their permanence in schools lasts no longer than 4 or 5 hours per
day.
B. Equity: One of the most important laws for Finnish educational
system is the following: Schools cannot select their students, they
are who decide to join to the closest school to their neighborhood or
change to another establishment
There is not socio-economical discrimination.
C. Free education: The government is in charge to give basic
education free for all the students, besides, it is also in charge to pay
and give all the needed material for the schools, lunch, snacks,
transportation (from home to school and vice versa), and medical and
dental health.
In the same way there are no restrictions of books or materials nor
national lists defined by the authorities. Teachers are free to teach
how they want or think is the best way and ask for books and
materials that they think are best for their methods.
D. Motivated teachers of excellence: In Finland only 1 out of 10
aspirants for teachers joins to the University for study pedagogy, the
reason of this is that if they want to become a teacher they have to
accomplish with a number of requirements, tests, abilities and
competences to become a docent. Also who practices pedagogy has
to have at least one master (Magister).
E. Attention to the students (connected with amount of them
per classroom): Another important point inside Finnish education is
the attention to the students needs. A basic value or rue is: No one
is left behind that is why in their classrooms are no more than 20
students in this way every students questions or needs are answered
in the best possible way. Besides that point, students do not receive

marks in their evaluations, competition feelings are no the idea in this

system.

II)

Disadvantages:

A. Implementation in other countries: 2 of the most important

points that work as a pillar inside the Finnish educational system, are
trusting in others and respect these two aspects or values are
very difficult to imitate in different countries that are based in
different educational systems, where the one who gets the best mark
is better student and person than the others for example. With that
said, to implement one educational system that is based in values
and organizations that are not the same, will not work, for example,
if a country with an educational system based in tests results to
express success, where marks are the core of studying instead of
acquiring the knowledge for been prepared for life, starts to acquire
an educational system with trust and values and no marks, will not
be compatible.
B. Multicultural restrictions: most teachers are ethnic Finns who are
not sufficiently educated to teach this new group of culturally diverse
students. Immigration in Finland is very restricted, the main reasons
of this are two points: the first one is the weather, long and hard
winters are not the best scenario for people. And the second point is
the language, very few people (besides Finnish people) knows how to
speak their language, this makes communication and co-relation
very hard to acquire. The last census made in Finland demonstrated
that from five million people, only 2.3% of them are immigrants, and
from that 2.3%, 85% does not know the language, including that
inside schools, students that do not know the language will create a
difficult scenario for the teacher and the class development.