Majelika

A couple of weeks back (16th September), I attended a Future Learning Finland one-day seminar & networking session. Finpro had invited a few dozen people from Malaysia for this session. Their goal was basically to share and market their world class Finnish education system and related educational products and services, and also gain more insight into the current and future learning trends and needs in Malaysia. Basically, it was an opportunity to learn, network and explore potential educational business/collaboration opportunities with each other.

Though, how come they invited me of all people? I found out during the seminar that one of the Finpro consultants had actually discovered me searching for information about e-learning in Malaysia. I suppose they saw me as a good source to find out more about the current and future e-learning trends in Malaysia. Anyway, whatever reason, I was just happy to be part of it, and make some noise.

But before sharing with you some of the things I learned about the world class Finnish education system, I would strongly recommend that you explore Amran Noordins excellent 6-part series, where he compares Singapore and Finlands schooling models (Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, Part 4, Part 5, Part 6), summed up nicely in his diagram below:

In short, Singapore and Finland have become world renowned for their education systems, but interestingly they have achieved their success using quite different approaches (to say it mildly!). To get the juicy details of both, please read Amran Noordins 6-part series mentioned above.



MY LEARNING NOTES

During this one day session of sharing, networking and exploring opportunities, I learned a lot (and scribbled a lot of notes, too) about why Finlands education system is so good (well at least according to them and many others around the world).

The first clash of cultures (Finland and Malaysia) started even before the learning session began. The main representative from the Ministry of Higher Education (MOE) came 30 minutes late, and the seminar could not start before he came.

If you dont know, Finnish people in general are very time conscious, and you should have seen how stressed out they were waiting for the main dude from Malaysia. Since we started 45 minutes late, most of the Finnish presenters swooshed through their presentations, and made a point reminding the audience that they will be on time, and not overuse the time been given. In short, even though they were extremely polite, I could see on their faces and body language that they were rather pissed off with the scheduling being put to shambles due to the initial delay.

Though, I found out later that the MOE representative actually had to attend another meeting earlier in the morning, and was delayed because of that. But, keep this in mind, especially with Finnish people (and Germans, British, Americans, Japanese, etc.):




Yeah, and if you want to present and convince Finnish people, please use research data and findings to back up your ideas and proposals. It was also interesting to compare MOEs presentation about Malaysian education with Dr. Heikkis presentation about the Finnish education system.

While the MOEs presentation talked about vision, mission, and some current student mobility programs (the objective was probably more to market the Malaysian education system, rather than tell the full story), the Finnish counter parts covered basically everything about their education system, including a few centuries, current and future scenarios, and reasons why its education system evolved that way, and the secrets behind its current success. Although, it was comprehensive, it was told in a very constructive and time-efficient manner.




Based on what I saw, Finnish people strive to be very efficient in whatever they do, and that includes giving presentations. No swimming here and there, just get to the point and solve the problem. We have a lot to learn here, as we often let our emotional feelings and ego take control, and forget about solving the real problem.

If you ask me, I felt most of the presenters lacked a bit in terms of exciting the audience with what they had to offer. In layman terms, they were a bit stiff, monotonous, and perhaps too efficient in delivery (the initial delay is probably one reason). Dont get me wrong, they were very well-rehearsed (like a program), but you need some emotional outbursts and connections to really touch the audience (well, at least me!).

Oops, lets get back on track...



SECRETS TO SUCCESS
What is the secret to Finlands success (5.3+ million citizens only)? NOKIA! Besides that?

Basically, due their tough environment (just look at their neighbors and climate!) and limited natural resources (except for large forest reserves), they have had no choice but to invest in educating their brains (Just like Singapore!).




Here are five reasons, why Finnish people have been, and are successful:

• Quality education with equal opportunity
• High level of investments in R&D for technology development
• Good regulatory framework and efficient public service
• Open economy: competition has to prevail
• Social model: social market economy, welfare society

As we are talking about education in this post (and blog), I will limit my observations and reflections to that next. If you want rough notes regarding the rest, click here for more details.

Besides free and universal high-level education from comprehensive school to university (6% of GDP directed to public education), Finland stresses also equal opportunity for all, irrespective of domicile, sex, economic situation or mother tongue. Teachers are required to be trained in dealing with low-achieving students, as well as students with disabilities and learning difficulties.

The fact that education is free, including travel expenses, welfare services, accommodation, books and other school material, means that students can focus more of their time on learning, rather than all the other distractions that might come with it.

However, besides all the student rights to this and that, students also have three main duties that they must fulfill, which are to attend classes, obey discipline, and complete their courses and programs. I suppose most education systems will have something like this documented, but in Finland it is strongly emphasized, and it is probably working better there than in most other countries.

They are really proud of their students PISA (Programme for International Student Assessment) achievements, where they are ranked number one in the world in most categories. To be honest, I had never heard of PISA before this event (Except the Italian one!). How ignorantly ignorant can you get! I am still learning!

Interestingly, a teacher must have a masters degree to teach in Finland, and also have a lifelong learning program mapped out for them. They emphasize a lot on lifelong learning, and it is kind of embedded into the their learning culture.



More importantly, the teacher profession is highly valued in Finland, meaning more people with the right attitude, mindset and skills will apply for such jobs, and in the end you will get better qualified and passionate people educating the future people of the country. I suppose that is why the Norwegian education system (where I studied), especially the schooling system is really crap (hopefully better now!). I remember most of my teachers as miserable creatures, who had failed in what they set out to be in life.

For example, my music teacher really wanted to be a singer (But her voice was horrible!), and due to her failure we students had to suffer. She really hated our guts, too! I had a gym teacher that used to throw his huge key chain after us, every time we pissed him off. He even threw a hammer after one student, but luckily he missed. If you wonder why Norway until today cannot create and innovate globally renowned products and services like the Swedes and Finnish dudes can, I suppose their lack of appreciation, dedication and emphasis on education is one reason for that. But then again, Norway is blessed with all sorts of natural resources (especially oil and gas), and therefore is one of the richest countries in the world. I cant imagine what Norway would be today, without their oil and gas. Lets get back to Finnish education...

In contrast to Singapore (please read Amran Noordins articles. Links above!), Finland dont rank students or schools, and they dont emphasize on standardized nationwide examinations that drive students, teachers and parents nuts. I suppose Singapores model is good for nurturing a competitive mindset, and encouraging students to work hard (and memorize everything you can think of). However, I believe the side effects are too many, and we need to question whether they are really preparing students for the 20th century, or for the 21st century (now and future)?

I personally believe (based on my shallow understanding) the Finnish education system has managed to infuse discipline, hard work, and competitiveness, but at the same time also infuse the right balance to nurture critical skills required for the 21 century, which include communication, collaboration, creativity (innovativeness), critical thinking, problem solving, digital literacy, flexibility, adaptability, global care/awareness, and emotional intelligence.

In addition, the Finnish education system is rather decentralized and schools are given a degree of freedom (independence) to develop their own curriculum. The problem with having a centralized system and curriculum, is that if you get it wrong, the whole country will suffer. Also, with a top-down model, it is difficult to quickly innovate and spark changes to the curriculum that is needed to deal with the increasingly disruptive learning world that we are experiencing today. However, in a decentralized system, schools can easily change and adapt as they learn, and also they have more freedom to explore and try out new things, without needing to worry about ranking of this and that.

Actually, ranking of schools and students is a disaster (if you ask me), if you really want to encourage universities, colleges, schools, students, and teachers to openly share, learn, discuss, reflect, and collaboratively innovate. It can be done, but it is very difficult because of our internal urge to be the best, or be better than our neighbors. In the world of sports, I can understand it, but for education I believe that might not be the best solution to move forward.

For example, If I want to be higher ranked than you, then probably I would want to keep some of the juicy stuff secret from you. Otherwise, you might overtake me, and if the government is nasty, give me less funds to innovate further. However, if ranking is put aside, we can instead focus on transforming the education system, nurturing dynamic learning clusters, and becoming a learning nation together.

Finally, Finland emphasizes big time on research and development (around 4% of GDP), and have interlinked companies with the Universities to collaborate on new innovations. Whatever they do, their approach is very scientific, which of course includes how they are continuously improving their education systems.

The only thing I felt was really missing from this seminar, was learning more about Finlands e-learning initiatives and success stories, which was not really discussed.



MOVING FORWARD

Can we do it? Yes, we can! But do we really want to? You decide? If you ask me, my answer would of course be... :)