The Finnish education system and PISA
Kupiainen, Sirkku; Hautamäki, Jarkko; Karjalainen, Tommi (2009)
opetus- ja kulttuuriministeriö
2009
Julkaisusarja:
Ministry of Education Publications, Finland 2009:46
Julkaisun pysyvä osoite on
http://urn.fi/URN:ISBN:978-952-485-779-6Tiivistelmä
The exceptionally high attainment of Finnish students in PISA 2000, 2003 and 2006 in all three literacy domains has aroused continuous international interest toward the Finnish education system. To respond to this interest, we present in this booklet a short overview of the Finnish education system and of Finnish students’ performance in PISA, aiming at showing how the first helps to understand and explain the latter.
Since the release of the first results of PISA 2000, Finnish students’ good performance has generated many candidates for ‘key explanations’, ranging from the phonetic character of the Finnish language to reading as a common pastime across the social strata, and from free school meals to research-based teacher education. When writing the national report on Finnish results for PISA 2006, however, the close affinity of the objectives of the Finnish basic school reform of 1970s with those of PISA a quarter of a century later began to emerge as the salient factor underlying many of the explanations given for the Finnish success until then. Building on that more inclusive report, the current presentation undertakes to offer a concise account of the reasons which at this moment seem to be the most apposite for explaining Finnish students’ success in PISA 2000, 2003 and 2006.
Since the release of the first results of PISA 2000, Finnish students’ good performance has generated many candidates for ‘key explanations’, ranging from the phonetic character of the Finnish language to reading as a common pastime across the social strata, and from free school meals to research-based teacher education. When writing the national report on Finnish results for PISA 2006, however, the close affinity of the objectives of the Finnish basic school reform of 1970s with those of PISA a quarter of a century later began to emerge as the salient factor underlying many of the explanations given for the Finnish success until then. Building on that more inclusive report, the current presentation undertakes to offer a concise account of the reasons which at this moment seem to be the most apposite for explaining Finnish students’ success in PISA 2000, 2003 and 2006.