To quality through equity in a Finnish way

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To quality through equity in a Finnish way

• Pirjo Sinko, FNBE, Finland
• Bridging Divides, 2009 AATE ALEA
• TASMANIA, HOBART 2009

Kirjoittajan nimi Tilaisuuden nimi Päiväys/ www.op
h.fi
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Finland a land of forests, snow, lakes and -
high technology and good readers
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Finlands Position in International Comparisons
Reading Literacy

• 1991 IEA Reading Literacy Study
• Finland was first
• 1998 OECD Adult Literacy Survey
• Finland was first
• 2001 Pisa
• Finland was first
• 2003 Pisa
• Finland was first
• 2006 PISA Finland was second

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Finland's Position in International Comparisons
Reading Literacy and Mathematics and Science

• PISA SURVEY 2006
• Finland, with an average of 563 score points, was
  the highest-performing country on the PISA 2006
  science scale.
• Finland was second in Reading Literacy among all
  participating countries
• Finland was second (after Taipei, China) in
  mathematical among OECD countries
• Finland was first in problem-solving among OECD
  countries (Survey 2003)

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PISA 2006 - reading

• Korea, with 556 score points, was the
  highest-performing country in reading. Finland
  followed second with 547 points and the partner
  economy Hong Kong-China third with 536 points.
• Canada and New Zealand had mean reading scores
  between 520 and 530, and the following countries
  still scored significantly above the OECD average
  of 492 score points Ireland, Australia, Poland,
  Sweden, the Netherlands, Belgium and Switzerland,
  and the partner countries Liechtenstein, Estonia
  and Slovenia.

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PISA 2006

• Korea increased its reading performance between
  PISA 2000 and PISA 2006 by 31 score points,
  mainly by raising performance standards among the
  better performing students.
• Good results of Finnish students are particularly
  due to relatively good achievements of the
  weakest quarter.
• There are vast differences between individuals
  but the results of learning outcomes between
  schools and regions are small (among the OECD
  countries we have smallest differences in
  learning results between schools and areas).

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• FINLAND AT A GLANCE
• independent since 1917, member of the European
  Union since 1995
• total area 338,000 km2, population 5.2 million
  (17 inhabitants / km2)
• two official languages Finnish 92 , Swedish 6
  , (Sami 0,03)
• religions Lutheran (85 ), Orthodox (1 )
• immigrants 2 of population
• main exports electronics, metal and
  engineering, forest industry
• GNP (61,598 AUD) and HDI (0.952) about par with
  Australia

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Background The language situation of Finland

• Finland is OFFICIALLY bilingual country
• Two national languages Finnish and Swedish
• The Swedish speaking minority is small only 6
  - but they have full rights to the usage of their
  own language.
• The second national language is an obligatory
  subject at school (Swedish to Finnish speakers,
  Finnish to Swedish).
• There are moreover two tiny ingenious language
  groups Sami (0,03 ) and Romany
• Immigrants only 2,5 rapidly increasing

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Many mother tongue syllabi

• Finnish and Swedish (official languages)
• There is a personal right to study Finnish,
  Swedish, Sami (only in the Sami region), Romany
  and Finnish sign language as a mother tongue.
• The importance of learning to read and write with
  own mother tongue.

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Characteristics of the Finnish education

• Excellent learning outcomes
• PISA 2000, 2003 and 2006
• drop-out during compulsory education less than
  0.5
• class repetition only 2
• more than 96 moves to upper secondary level
• small between-school differences
• Effective use of resources
• 190 school days per year, 4 -7 hours per day
• moderate amount of homework, no private lessons
  after school
• 6 of GDP goes to education

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Class repetition percentages in OECD countries
Source Osaaminen kestävällä pohjalla, PISA 2003
Suomessa, Koulutuksen tutkimuslaitos 2006
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Quest for success?

• Do the Finnish teachers perform magic tricks?
• Could the reason for Finlands success simply be
  hidden in healthy (and free of charge) school
  meals which improve the brain capacity?
• Both assumptions may be right but it is better
  not to draw hasty conclusions before looking more
  closely into the Finnish school. Unfortunately
  there is no clear evidence available on the
  cause-effect relationship.

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How are we coping?

• Indeed it seems possible to have within one
  educational system both equal opportunities for
  education and good results.
• What are the factors behind good results?
• Finnish school system itself
• High status of reading culture and learning
  mother tongue
• Effective education administration and
  partnerships

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Is the Finnish school somehow special?

• Equal opportunities for education irrespective
  of domicile, sex, economic situation or mother
  tongue
• Education totally free of charge
• Near to home (every school has its own catchment
  area)
• Comprehensive, non-selective basic education
• Supportive and flexible administration -
  centralized steering of the whole, local
  implementation by responsible municipalities
• Interactive, co-operative way of working at all
  levels - idea of partnership

Culture of equity and trust
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Education for all

• Practically no elite schools any school can
  afford good teachers from Helsinki to Lapland
• Flexible structure of the system no dead-ends
• Comprehensive, inclusive policy no streaming
• System is consistent and coherent
• common values, goals and high expectations
• central monitoring and support
• local implementation and responsibility

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Flexibility

• Flexibility and school/teacher autonomy in
  curriculum implementation allocating goals,
  contents, time and resources, selecting methods
  and materials and forming study groups
• Importance of goals which can be reached by means
  of different contents, methods and materials
• Goals and criteria for good performance are
  expressed mainly as competencies, not as detailed
  knowledge
• Teachers are encouraged to take into account the
  various needs of their students and to emphasize
  good basic competencies

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In mother tongue instruction this means

• Teachers are free to
• design schools own curriculum
• make their own materials or choose the best
  text book
• choose the reading materials with their students
  and
• devise own tests for their classes.

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Soft evaluation

• Development-oriented evaluation and student
  assessment
• No inspections
• No ranking lists (league tables) of schools
• In basic education only sample-based national
  evaluation of learning outcomes national
  matriculation examination at the end of general
  upper secondary education
• Supportive student assessment promotes learning
  and learning-to-learn abilities

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Importance of early learning and intervention

• Pre-school education for 6-year-olds (since 2000)
• promoting childrens favourable growth and
  learning, healthy sense of self-esteem and
  readiness for studies through play and other
  child-centred activities
• Early intervention during pre-school and basic
  education
• recognizing learning, linguistic and
  developmental problems and organizing individual
  support as soon as possible
• Children with special needs are allowed to start
  a year earlier
• Multi-professional and community approach
• Parents are actively involved in planning
  processes of individual goals and support

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Emerging literacy at pre-school

• pre-school year lays the foundation for learning
  to read and write
• a learning environment where to develop the
  phonological awareness, vocabulary and literacy
  and where to get experencies of different text
  types and genres
• half of the pre-school pupils learn to read as if
  by chance (earlier one third of seven-year-olds
  knew how to read when entering the school)
• a flying start for a reader because of the
  shallow orthography of the Finnish language
• long childhood the compulsory school begins at
  the age of 7.

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Strong support for weak readers and writers we
need everybody aboard!

• Our weak learners are better in basic skills than
  in other OECD countries.
• The underlying ethos is a strong sense of
  equality.
• Every pupil has a right to get special needs
  education part-time or full-time remedial
  (additional) teaching.
• 37 of first-graders get additional support.
• Early intervention is emphasized.
• Diagnosis and rehabilitation as early as possible
• Intensive cooperation between parents, teachers
  and other experts.
• All class teachers and special needs teachers
  have knowledge and expertise concerning learning
  difficulties.
• The philosophy of inclusion is strong.

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Äidinkieli ja kirjallisuus The Holy Grail of
Mother tongue teaching?

• Changing the name to Mother tongue and literature
• Broad concept of text i.e. all kinds of texts
• Competence-based curriculum
• Emphasis on meta-cognitive and strategic skills
• Focus on the mastery of genres and text types
• Reading and writing seen as a process
• Enforcing the motivation to read
• No canon of books, free choice of reading
• Problems to find a balance on teaching grammar
  and skills (strong grammar tradition, starts too
  early)

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DISTRIBUTION OF LESSON HOURS IN BASIC EDUCATION
(2004)
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New structure of mother tongue syllabus better
intra-subject integration

• Structured in 3 phases with their respective
  objectives, core contents, and descriptions of
  good performance (credit 8) after the 2nd. 5th
  and 9th school year.
• The objectives The pupils
• interaction skills will increase
• skills in interpreting and utilizing various
  texts will develop
• skills on producing texts and utilizing them for
  the different purposes will develop
• relationship with language, literature, and other
  culture will deepen

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Finnish matriculation examination

• Two parts (one day allocated to each)
• Text competence (tasks to analyze and interpret
  texts fiction, factual texts, media texts, adds
  (picture words), figures, statistics . . .
• Essay writing (material based or title or an
  assignement)
• No oral test

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Are Finnish mother tongue teachers somehow
special?

• Dedicated professionals
• participating on their leisure time to in-service
  training
• regardless of reduced lesson hours their weekly
  workload is highest (due to endless homework)
• often therapists
• Cultural commissars of schools and community
• One out of twenty are males only

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Teacher profession in Finland in general

• The profession is valued high in society.
• High quality of teacher education university
  level teacher training for all teachers
• Class teachers have the same length of academic
  training as the subject teachers
• Kindergarten teachers have at least Bachelors
  Degree and school teachers at least Masters
  Degree
• Class teacher training is attractive talented
  young, especially girls, choose teaching career.
  Teacher profession is popular, only 10-12 can
  be admitted.

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Finnish society supports reading

• Most families subscribe home a daily newspaper
• One of the worlds best library systems
• Number of books published or borrowed annually
  from a public library is high
• Especially women are keen readers and they
  understand the importance of reading
• Foreign tv programmes have subtitles instead of
  dubbing improves childrens reading routine

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Effective co-operation

• Good results in reading literacy call for a
  strong co-operation between homes, schools and in
  the whole society.
• Interactive, co-operative way of working at all
  levels in partnership

Parents
Education Administration
Schools
Research

• Other stakeholders
• Media
• Libraries

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TEACHING AND LEARNING
SCHOOL CURRICULUM
MUNICIPAL CURRICULUM
Municipal
strategies
Study material
National Core Curriculum Governments Decree
on the General National Objectives and
Distribution of lesson hours Education Act and
Decree
Teacher education
Finnish Monitoring System 2008
Irmeli Halinen 2008
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Ongoing work for literacyThe READING FINLAND
project

• The objectives were
• to improve the reading and writing skills of the
  pupils in basic and general upper secondary
  education
• to increase their knowledge of literature.

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Current concerns of Finnish mother tongue
teachers

• low number of lesson hours when subject teachers
  get the students
• overly expanded syllabi the area mother tongue
  teachers are responsible for is continuously
  growing (media literacy, information literacy,
  internet based work, new sources of information,
  new tools for writing etc.)
• poor school libraries lack of topical reading
  materials at school
• book reading is reducing among youngsters
• deep gender gap in reading and writing skills
  girls much better than boys
• the national recommendation for the usage of
  state funding e.g. to group sizes not binding to
  municipalities
• English language (1 st foreign language) as a
  subject is more popular than mother tongue
  lessons among pupils

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Gender gap in reading literacy

• The largest gender gap among school subjects in
  Finland is in writing (and reading)
• In all OECD countries in PISA 2006, girls
  performed better in reading on average than boys.
  
• In twelve countries, the gap was at least 50
  score points.
• In Greece and Finland, girls were 57 and 51
  points ahead respectively, and the gap was 50 to
  66 points in the partner countries Qatar,
  Bulgaria, Jordan, Thailand, Argentina, Slovenia,
  Lithuania, Kyrgyzstan, Latvia and Croatia.

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Recapping The main factors behind good learning
results?

• Finnish school system itself
• Curriculum and curriculum design process
• Teacher education system
• Status of teachers in the society
• Ongoing development work
• Whole culture which values education and
  learnedness teachers are not alone

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Links www.pisa2006.helsinki.fi www.oph.fi/englis
h pirjo.sinko_at_oph.fi