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The scandinavian pioneering role in school reforms has a long tradition. It is not only the comprehensive-school-system which makes Finnland a top-performer. Many countries are trying to emulate Finland and more equal opportunities in education can be a good progress. But why is Finnland a top-performer? In my opinion it could be PISA which is responsible for the comparison of school systems. PISA is criticized by many researchers, so first we have to scrutinize whether Finland can be a prototype.

According to the latest scores of PISA, it seems like we all start to search how China and South Corea is doing in their education systems. As for the question why Finland is a top-performer, there are several aspects to explain it. I think, initially, teacher education comes first and equality and equity in education follow this. Therefore they show up as top thanks to PISA. Their school tradition, history of both economics and education, population and mentality of learning could be obstacles to make it as a prototype and compare with some countries.

My aim was not to call Finland as a top-performer into question. I want to criticize PISA and their purposes. For example the test-structure are determining the results, so if sth. would be changed, another country will be the top-performer. I found an interesting critique: http://www.univie.ac.at/pisaaccordingtopisa/pisazufolgepisa.pdf But maybe I failed the original topic, because that article doesn't discuss PISA.

We had the same conversation here with my colleagues from Belgium and Netherlands the outcomes that PISA is measuring. It is after all measuring certain outcomes that OECD wants to measure. We also have to be careful in taking Finland as a model and such comparative approach just like mentioned in a series of reports that Christian shared.

PISA is a big goal for policy makers. They want to success even they don't believe, because it makes country popular as seen above:) We have to focus on real indicators like development... And here is an infographic about Finland's educational system: http://slowrobot.com/i/43651#

In my oppinion, we couldnot seek the other countries' educational systems, at the begining of possible educational reform process. Before this, students profile and the reasons behind the problems have to be analysed; such as economic and social problems, teacher's competencies, subject matter, schools' physical equipments, etc. As I mentioned, before analysing other countries systems, we have to analyse our educational systems indetail and clearly. From that point, solutions can be seeked and useful after determination fo the problems..

Now I understand your point, Christian. Thanks for sharing that pdf, I think that is related with the article since it discusses the whole structure of PISA which is showed as a scale. And for sure,that might happen that another country would be top according to another kind of testing but still there is a hard fact about Finland and their school culture. I have seen that infographic before but I feel the need to correct some issues there according to my stay in Finland. For instance, it says that there are no seperate classrooms for accelerated learning or special education but there are many of them. As for homeworks, this saying of having rarely homework is not actually reflecting the reality. They do have homeworks but the definiton of it might cause misunderstandings;)

Thank you Sinem for correcting the infographic's assumptions. I would like to hear more about your experiences in Finland.