World's Best Education System

Although it is summer and I am currently on holiday, I can’t help myself and just once in a while think about school and my students…

And while day dreaming, I take a look at my kids and think of those that I teach and one thing comes up: in thirty years from now, countries of the world will be governed by today’s youth. Yeah, this means that Honza S or Marek P or Jakub H or those chatty girls such as Aneta or Kamila will be the ones leading and shaping the country. Their thoughts and actions will be shaped by what they know and have experienced, making education, in many ways, one of the best predictors of a nation’s future success. So how well are we preparing them for this inevitable role?

Keeping this in mind, I googled Courtiers with Best Education System….and came across an interesting study…

Denmark, Norway, Sweden and Finland spend the most money on education as a percentage of their gross domestic product, according to the World Bank. Maybe that is the reason why these Scandinavian nations all ranked in the top third, even outperforming Asian nations.

South Korea ranked at number 11, despite the fact that it is the only nations where students attend school each day of the week – I wonder what our students would say if suddenly Saturday and Sunday was a school day too. Japan, which I assume no one is surprised, ranked at number 8, the best of all Asian nations.

It listed Finland as number 1 and Iran as the last. Although ranking Pakistan as the second to last, was no surprise, it suddenly made sense why the young female student Malala Yousafzai (who won the Nobel Prize for her advocacy in fighting Taliban restrictions of females attending the school) should be taken more seriously.

So I searched some more…and turned towards UN or UNICEF to help me get some statistics.

All those studies also confirmed that Scandinavian countries, leading with Finland, are simply the best, shortly followed by South Korea or Japan.

So my curiosity took the best of me… and I then googled: Why is educational in Finland so good? And after several hours of reading several points kept repeating itself over and over.

·         Schools in Finland have a different approach. Instead of control, competition, stress, standardized testing, screen-based schools and loosened teacher qualifications they focus on warmth, collaboration, and highly professionalized, teacher-led encouragement and assessment.

·         While the school in Finland have the latest technology, there isn’t a tablet or smartphone in sight, in any of the classrooms, just a smart board and a teacher’s desktop.

·         Children are allowed to slouch, wiggle and giggle from time to time if they want to, since that’s what children are biologically engineered to do, in Finland, America, Asia and everywhere else.

Obviously, there is a lot more that one needs to keep in mind when comparing educational systems: culture, poverty, race and even history as it has such an enormous influence on the nation. However, that would become way too long… and I am on holiday after all J