Finland has the best education system in the world: 5 lessons for India to learn 

Albert Einstein had said “Education is not the learning of facts, but the training of the minds to think.” The education system in the Nordic country Finland is largely based on this idea. However, they didn’t reform their education overnight and neither can we. But with the introduction of New Education Policy (NEP) 2020, India has started to take little yet significant steps to improve the education system across the country. India has already adopted new pedagogical structures and teaching strategies that focus on the holistic development of students. Yet, it still has a long way to go, which is why it can take cues from Finland on how to raise self-sufficient, aware and educated individuals and make the country a better place for the future. Here are a few lessons India can learn from Finland.  

Making education affordable and flexible 
In India, one of the major problems in education is affordability. While government or government funded schools are easy on the pocket, parents often consider that the education there isn’t of the best quality. On the other hand, private schools that strive to provide quality education are too expensive to bear. For this reason, literacy gap in India is quite significant. However, in Finland, cost of education is minimal. In fact, school fees are often charged as per the family’s income to ensure that no child, regardless of their economical background, misses out on quality education.  

Another important stepping stone in Finland’s education system is the flexibility that it offers its students to choose their own path depending on their ambitions and interests. They are given absolute freedom to opt for vocational training, professional courses and not attend universities at all. Such flexibility and power to choose their education path.  

Growing the credibility of government schools 
As already mentioned, government run schools in India are considered to provide below-the-par quality education. In sharp contrast to this, Finland local authorities (such as municipality) are responsible to provide quality school education and also care for students’ upbringing during off-school hours. Their goals are simple: Overall development of students of all ages, hiring qualified teachers, maintaining a well-structured education system, and setting up a working infrastructure. All of these can be ardently followed in India.  In fact, in Finland, there are no private schools as such. India needs to strengthen and increase the teaching and education standards in government schools and thereby, augment their reliability and credibility.  

Changing the compulsory education age bracket 
In India, kids are often sent to pre-primary or primary schools even before they learn how to speak or walk properly. Not only that, they are expected to move ahead of their peers and learn things at an unimaginable speed. For this reason, India needs to take serious pointers from Finland where mandatory education starts from the age of seven. Prior to that, focus is given on building a strong foundation by teaching kids at home, where they get to develop cognitive skills that’ll enable them to receive formal education. In fact, the compulsory education phase in Finland is from Class I to IX where emphasis is not only given on academic learning, but also development of own viewpoints from multiple options around, wherein they make various observations, come up with different perspectives and learn to draw their own guided conclusions. This is how they develop a broader outlook on things and develop multi-disciplinary career goals.  

Strengthening the role of teachers 
Students can only receive world class education if their teachers are properly trained and are highly competent. That is why strengthening the role of teachers is imperative. The goal here is to not just train teachers on what to teach, but also on the how-to of it. Teaching strategies should shift from theory to practical and teachers should be vastly involved while making decisions on the curriculum, making them a more direct part of the education system.  

Ditching the rote culture and giving attention to application 
Indian education system is largely based on a rote learning where the focus is on completion of syllabus, textbook learning, appearing in the exams and delivering good results. This doesn’t really nurture students’ talents and creativity, while showcasing a wrong notion of success (scoring high marks). This is where India needs to alter the education structure that prioritises exams above all. Instead, it should follow the Finnish policy where they emphasise on knowledge gathering and its real-life application.