Finland has vastly improved in reading, math and science literacy over
the past decade in large part because its teachers are trusted to do whatever it takes to turn young lives
around. ‘Whatever it takes’ is an
attitude that drives most of Finn’s educators. To me, this is the most important
spirit every educator should have.
There are no private schools in Finland!.
Technically, there are a few independent schools, but they’re financed by the
state and don’t charge tuition. On the other hand, in Malaysia, parents can
choose to take their kids to private schools. It’s the same idea of a
marketplace that applies to, say, shops. Schools are shops and parents can buy
whatever they want. In Finland parents can also choose. But the options are all
the same. The Atlantic article also notes that all Finnish students receive
free meals at school, and have “easy access to health care, psychological
counselling, and individualized student guidance.
In
Finland, all administrators
are elected from people who have worked as teachers. This is one
thing I kept telling those people in Human Resource Department, but nobody paid
any attention, what more to look into it seriously. This may seem minute to
some, but to me, it is very important. We should actually keep the business of
education in the hands of educators not in the hands of any Tom, Dick or Harry.
I believe that it’s practically impossible to become an instructional superintendent
without also being a former teacher. I have experienced working with a person [in
leadership positions] with no background in teaching, and it has been proven
that he lacks the type of communication that is needed in the education
affairs.
Finland’s
academic systems do not focus on tests. Finns don’t believe you can
reliably measure the essence of learning. They claim that they are in education because they
believe in cooperation and sharing. Cooperation is a core starting point for
growth. To that end, testing doesn’t really begin until students are “well into
their teens,” according to
the Times. Where as in MARA specifically and in Malaysian public
schools generally, is that, it’s based on a belief in competition. Malaysian
parents send their children to school with the expectations of their children
achieve academic excellence, where getting an ‘A’ in all subjects that really
matters most!
In Finland, Teaching
is a revered profession. It seems that the teaching
profession is one of the most famous careers in Finland, so young people want
to become teachers. In Finland, they think that teachers are the key for the
future and it’s a very important profession—and that’s why all of the young,
talented people want to become teachers. There teachers are selected from the
top 1o% of the nation’s graduates. It’s compulsory for teachers to have a
master’s degree in education, a process that typically takes five years, and
requires intensive supervised teacher-training. I strongly agree with this concept
because to me, in order for a teacher to impart knowledge, he himself should be
knowledgeable.
They trust their
teachers. Teachers in Finland can choose their own
teaching methods and materials. They are experts of their own work, and they
test their own pupils, I think this is also one of the reasons why teaching is
such an interesting and attractive profession in Finland because teachers are
working like academic experts with their own pupils in schools. Teachers are given
freedom to use their own creativity and they are also put in charge of their
own students. Schools are also small enough so that teachers know every
student. Since teachers know their students best, they can plan lessons and
activities that can best suit their students, so learning will be more
meaningful. It is reported that about 30% of their students received special
help during their first 9 years of school. Teachers are so involved in the
T&L process that if one method fails, they will collaboratively discuss and
try something else.
They integrate foreign students. This is
another good move by the Finnish government. It’s just the same concept of the
‘Remove Class’ in the Malaysian schools. In Finland, if children come from a
very different schooling system or society, they have one year in a smaller
setting where they study Finnish and maybe some other subjects. “We try to
raise their level before they come to regular classrooms.” Finnish schools also
try to teach immigrant students’ native language as much as possible. “It’s very
challenging,” she said. “I think in Helsinki, they are teaching 44 different
mother tongues. The government pays for two-hour lessons each week for these
pupils. We think it is very important to know your own tongue—that you can
write and read and think in it. Then it’s easier also to learn other languages
like Finnish or English, or other subjects.”
I personally think that it would be fantastic
if we could implement the Finn’s education system here in Malaysia. But in
reality, I am afraid that the Finland system can’t simply be picked up and adapted
into the Malaysian education system because education is a very complex system.
We cannot simply make any changes over night because there are too many
divergent factors for that to happen. Finland’s population is only about 5.3
million, while there are more than 25 million residents in Malaysia. But even
more importantly, their culture is vastly different from ours and that makes it
a totally different scenario all together.
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