While eight students in a special-needs class were learning math at Juvanpuiston School, an 11-year-old boy suddenly threw the pencil he was using before hiding under his desk and screaming. The boy apparently lost control of himself after losing a dice game he was playing with his classmates.

Juha Kiilunen, 32, the teacher in charge of the class, comforted the boy, but the rest of the class did not stop as assistant teacher Heli Salminen, 32, took care of the other seven students.

This was one of the scenes The Yomiuri Shimbun observed during a recent visit to Espoo in southern Finland.

Juvanpuiston School is a comprehensive school covering six years of primary and three years of middle school education. The municipal government-run institution has three special-needs classes for slow learners and students with behavioral problems. There are a total of six teachers in charge of these three classes. Thanks to careful instruction, more than 10 percent of the students in the special-needs classes can go back to regular classes.

Juvanpuiston School has fewer than 32 students per class, including regular ones, with an average teacher-student ratio of 1:12.

“We don’t neglect the education of any single child,” Principal Ossi Airaskorpi, 52, said as he observed the special-needs class that was restored to order when Kiilunen calmed the boy down. “Every child receives the attention they require.”

When the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) released the results of the 2006 Program for International Student Assessment (PISA) it conducted in 2006, Finland again ranked in the top class, as it has since the survey was first conducted in 2000.

Japan, in contrast, has realized through the PISA that scholastic abilities among its children have been significantly declining.

As the third assessment, the 2006 PISA was administered to a total of about 400,000 15-year-olds in 57 countries and territories, including some that do not participate in the OECD, such as Hong Kong and Taiwan. Among the OECD participants, Finland was ranked at the top in both scientific and mathematical literacy, while taking second place in reading literacy. In the 2003 PISA, the country took first place in all three domains.

Experts have pointed to Finland’s philosophy of education as the driving factor behind such high levels of scholastic performance. The Finnish way aims at helping all students–including those in special-needs classes–develop their scholastic abilities in small-group instruction, rather than focusing on pulling up a limited number of the brightest students.

The history of this philosophy dates back about 90 years. Finland laid down a free education policy in 1919, two years after becoming independent from Russia. In 1968, the law on comprehensive schools was enacted, by which basic education for children was extended to nine years from four. During the nine years, everything from tuition and learning materials to school meals, health checks and transportation are free of charge.

The 2006 PISA shows that the variance in student performance between Finnish schools was within a range of 5 percentage points, the lowest figure among the OECD participants. Moreover, teachers working at the primary and middle school levels are required to earn at least a master’s degree, while their pay system also has been improved over the past decade or so. By motivating teachers well, Finland has turned itself into a “major educational power.”

The fate of Finland, which has a population of just more than 5 million and lacks rich natural resources, has largely depended upon human development.

Finland’s National Board of Education, an advisory panel to the Education Ministry, establishes basic policy, based on which about 450 municipal governments compile respective curriculums. These curriculums are distributed to public schools, which account for more than 95 percent of all schools at the basic-education level.

Local governments compete against each other in their respective education programs as nationwide achievement tests are conducted every year that show variance in students’ performances among schools.

“Our deliberate and continued investment in education has again been rewarded with the top position in the PISA ranking,” said Education and Science Minister Sari Sarkomaa, stressing the success of Finland’s national policy.

The National Board of Education has been receiving inquiries from more than 100 countries worldwide, and welcomes five to 10 organizations every week for tours to observe local schools.

Answering a question during one such tour, Irmeli Halinen, head of the board’s Preschool and Comprehensive School Education Unit, said: “The principal [aim] of our education is to improve the skills and abilities of all the children we teach.”

Source: The Daily Yomiuri, Japan
http://www.yomiuri.co.jp/dy/features/language/20080214TDY14002.htm