Hisham Sarwar
Over the past decade Finland’s education system has vastly improved. In order to turn young lives around, the teachers in the country do their best for making this system one of the best in the world. But it seems that the authorities there are not contended with their achievements. They want to carry through a revolution by looking at a bigger picture.
The authorities want to encourage improvement and create a system that truly meets children’s 21st century needs. They have come up with the idea of removing school subjects from their syllabus. This means that students will not be taking any classes for physics, math, literature, geography, or history.
In Helsinki, the head of the department Marjo Kyllonen, stated that some of the schools are still teaching students in the old-fashioned ways. That might have helped students in the beginning of 1900s but those methods are not applicable in the 21st century.
The new curriculum will make students learn events and phenomena in an interdisciplinary manner instead of studying subjects individually. For instance, students will analyze events of Second World War with different perspectives of history, math, and geography. And for taking course “Working in a café”, students will be required to absorb the knowledge all together regarding economics, communications skills, and English language.
This education system will be introduced to students at the age of 16. The students will be allowed to choose the subjects they want to study with the perfect vision in mind about their future ambitions. In this way students will not have to take test for any course such as physics or chemistry.
In this system, the student-teacher communication system will also change. Instead of sitting behind desk and waiting for their name to be called for answering a question, they will be required to discuss issues in the form of small groups.
Collective work and group discussions are something really encouraged in the Finnish school systems. This change will not only help students but it will also change teacher’s ways of communication with their pupils. As this system is considered to be followed in future education system, around 70% of the teachers have already undertaken introductory work in order to prepare for the new system.
The shift towards this system is expected to be completed in 2020 all over the country. Finland’s creation of a “good learning environment” has a lot to teach other countries. Finland’s removal of testing from its educational system is a proof that explains “testing” does not mean students are doing better.
Via: Brightside.me
