Finland’s great revolution in curriculum!

If the matter is education, all Scandinavian countries stand at the top of the list, but Finland always succeed to outshine among them. According to many researches, Finland is one of the countries which has the best education. Nevertheless, Finland doesn’t stop and constantly try to find new methods in education system. Now, they are in the course of a very important reform for their curriculum.

A couple of months ago, the concept of ‘teaching by topic’ was introduced by Finn components.

Marjo Kyllonen, Finn component in the Department of Education in Helsinki, explained the changes: “ There are schools that are teaching in the old-fashioned way which was of benefit in the beginning of the 1900s, but the needs are not the same, and we need something fit for the 21st century.” Well, what does this mean and what kind of education is being purposed? They plan to remove all the standard classes, so there won’t be any class like mathematics, literature, physics, history, geography and so on anymore! In the new system, they will teach by topics rather than the method of teaching by traditional subjects and instead of classic subjects, some special events and cases will be handled. For example, World War II will be examined in terms of its history, mathematics and geography. Besides this, students will take some courses like ‘working in the cafe’ and they will study communication skills, English and economic education practically. But I think the best change which they have planned is that students will choose their own topics to study and decide their topic titles. So they won’t need to study the whole unit and answer them in the exam. They will be responsible only for the topics which they choose. Moreover, the way of teacher-student communication will also change. Students will not only sit on the chairs and answer the questions asked by teachers, but rather they will discuss some issues in small groups.

I think all these changes in education will encourage students for collective work. This new system will begin first with the students who are over 16 years old. Until 2020, Finland is planning to finish all their preparations for this revolution in their education system.

If they achieve to carry out this new system, I guess Finland will continue to be at the top!