Good learning tips for Finnish children

More than 100 foreign experts and government officials visited Finland's capital Helsinki last year in the hope of finding the secrets to making children here with impressive academic achievements.

A class in Finland.Photo: infotech.oulu.fi.

BBC said that in 2006 Finnish students achieved the highest average results among all developed countries for the two subjects of science and reading comprehension. In the OECD tests for 15-year-old students, or PISA for short, students in the country also ranked second in Mathematics, behind only Korean students.

This is not the first time: in last year's PISA exam, Finland ranked first.

According to the BBC, the Finnish perspective of education is that everyone has the ability to contribute and the school should not leave those who are struggling with a certain subject. The measure that schools apply in most class hours is to arrange an additional teacher in the class to help students who have problems with the subject. But all students are allowed to attend the same class, regardless of their high or low level.

The Finnish Minister of Education, Henna Virkkunen, is very proud of the country's achievements, but her next goal is to target the best students.

'Finland's education system has helped a lot for students who have difficulty learning, but we need to focus more on talented students. We are currently launching a pilot project to support truly gifted students in some areas. '

School students in Vaasa, Finland.Photo: AFP.

7 years old must go to school

According to the OECD, Finnish students spend less time in school than all other developed countries. That reflects another important foundation in this country's education.

The primary and secondary schools here are one-on-one so students will not have to transfer schools when they are 13 years old, and thus avoid the transfer from one school to another.

A teacher named Marjaana Arovaara-Heikkinen believes that teaching a group of students for several years makes her work easier.

'It seems that I grew up with children. I know the problems they encounter when they are young. Now, after 5 years, I can still know what happened during your teenage years. I told my students that I was like a second mother in their school. '

Finnish students start school at age 7. The point of education here is: Before the seventh year, children can learn the most when they are playing, and when they are at school they will be fully interested in learning.

Learn a lot

Parents in Finland also play an important role in the students' impressive results. Children's reading habits are formed at home and families often contact teachers.

Teaching is a highly respected profession in Finland. Teachers are highly valued and the standards for teaching are also very strict. The success of Finnish education is probably partly due to cultural factors. Students learn in a very comfortable and intimate environment. Finland is a country with a very low percentage of migrants. Therefore, when starting school, most students use Finnish. This eliminates the obstacles that some countries face.

The concept of learning less is the foundation of success in education here. Finland focuses on establishing friendly and open schools, not subject to government intervention. They believe that it helps them not to miss any students in society.