This post is a follow-up on the preceding piece recommending a BBC report about Finland’s education system. I highlight specific examples of this country’s unique system – for the benefit of many in my part of the world, who clearly do NOT know anything of the sort exists e.g kids who do not start school before 7 years, who take NO EXAMS (Yep. You read THAT right!) etc.

Finnish kids do not start formal schooling until 7 years & they get:

1. Short school days

2. Long holidays

3. Relatively little homework

4. No exams

Finland’s education system has has “long fascinated experts” around the world…because it ”produces high academic results in children who do not start formal schooling until the age of seven (7)”

PROOF IT WORKS:

Finland’s 15 year olds have, for 2 decades, regularly scored amongst the highest in the global Pisa league tables for reading, maths and science.

My Question: How do Nigerian kids (who commence formal schooling from as early as 6 months, often staying morning till evening and taking assignments home) perform on those SAME international league tables?

The truth is Nigerians do NOT even appear there…if they did we would have heard their (expensive!) schools screaming it from the roof tops!!!

So it means the Finnish kids get to have so much free time and fun, only to outperform our over worked kids!

Nigerian educators and parents stop wasting kids’ time in a system that does NOT work, and borrow adaptable ideas from one that DOES work – like Finland’s.

This is especially important NOW, that Finland is “shaking up the way it is doing things – a move that it says is vital in a digital age where children are no longer reliant on books and the classroom to gain knowledge.”

Read BBC report about Finland’s new direction in education at www.tinyurl.com/sdn-bbc-finland