Journal Critique
Charlyn Richard D. Salvador
Common 201 – Design, System and Future Thinking
Prof. Amorsolo F. Espiritu
Article Reviewed:
Hancock, LynNell, (2011) Why Are Finland’s Schools Successful?
The article, “Why Are Finland’s Schools Successful” by LynNell Hancock, articulated in 2011 in
Finland is to determine why Finland become successful in the field of education. Hancock discusses
what Finland did to their educational system. He also emphasizes the new school system of Finland
stating; “There are no mandated standardized tests in Finland, apart from one exam at the end of
students’ senior year in high school. There are no rankings, no comparisons or competition between
students, schools or regions.” Additional to that, the new school system of Finland, their schools are
publicly funded. Also, Finnish educators, used the so called “Whatever it takes” wherein the teachers
were commended in making their own curriculums. By doing that, teachers have the freedom to
make a program in schools that suits to their students. This article used a qualitative research
method to collect information. It is conducted by an interview to the persons/s involved in the
research. “Qualitative research involves the studied use and collection of a variety of empirical
materials – case study, personal experience, introspective, life story, interview, observational,
historical, interactional, and visual texts – that describe routine and problematic moments and
meanings in individuals’ lives”. (Denzin and Lincoln 2005:2)
Before 1970, Finland was omitted in their educational system. It had a traditional way of
teaching. As the population become increasing, there was a demand in the educational system.
“Finnish students were sorted into academic grammar schools and work-oriented civic schools after
their four years of primary education.” (Saavedra et al. 2018). Finnish students had a low-rate level in
academics. There was an inequality in attending school.
The journal was focuses on finding out the primary aspect to the transformation of the
educational system of schools in Finland. Some studies and research will be used as reference in
finding out the primary aspect to the transformation of the educational system of schools in Finland.
According to Maria Haukka, “According to the Finnish teaching philosophy, students should set
their own learning objectives. As teachers, we do not always have the ultimate knowledge of the
student’s needs. We believe that in most cases the students know the answers themselves. Teaching
in class is not teacher-centric but student-centric.” Like what Finland government did, the educators
do their own curriculum that focuses on the development of the students. It shows that they value
their students for their future.
Formulating an innovation in educational system in Finland was successful. Government of
Finland did a huge impact to their nations. Consequently, not only Finnish people are benefiting but
also to other nations who become their immigrants. For them to visualize the change in their nation,
Finland introduced the new comprehensive school system. And because of this, the new
comprehensive school system gives Finland victory. With the right implementation of the new school
system, the students, teachers and schools were in the right path. Serdyukov (2017) “In order for an
educational innovation to make a significant difference it should be adopted widely.” “Part of the
strategy is to spread the school network so that pupils have a school near their homes whenever
possible or if is not feasible e.g. in rural areas to provide free transportation to more widely dispersed
schools. Inclusion of special education and instructional efforts to minimize low achievement are also
typical to Nordic educational system (Lie, Linnakyla & Roe, 2003, p. 8) By giving the equal access of
education, more students can attend to the schools. Through the equality of each school as they
showed helping each other in pursuing one goal, they got the highest rate in three academic levels in
mathematics, reading and science.
On my thought, there is a possibility that this will happen in every country if they have good
educational system. Like in Finland, I like what they did, they trusted their own Educators to do their
own curriculum. They teach in a way that they know that their students will learn and use it after they
graduated. According to Olli Luukkainen, President of Finnish Teachers Union, “The fact the teachers
have so much independence and respect influence young people as they are deciding what
programme they will follow in the University. If the choose teacher education they know they will be
entering a profession that enjoys broad trust and respect in the society, one that plays an important
role in shaping the country’s future”. Aside from that, there is no competency in each school and
students which for me the so called “Equality” is being dominant. The parliament push through this
new educational system because they have goal, they planned it thoroughly. Reform in educational
system is very important because it just doesn’t help the students but also helps the economic growth
of a nation. It’s not too late to change or to transform.
“Education not only needs new ideas and inventions that shatter the performance expectations
of today’s status quo; to make a meaningful impact, these new solutions must also “scale,” that is
grow large enough, to serve millions of students and teachers or large portions of specific
underserved populations” (Shelton, 2011).
