Recipes for Systemic Change - Helsinki Design Lab

Another distinguishing feature in Finland is the high level of autonomyin local government at the municipal level. While the Ministry of Educationestablishes the goals for students at the highest level and for the entirenation, it is largely up to the local authorities and schools to decide how toimplement these goals and by what methods. While 57% of education budgetsare provided by the national government, the remaining 43% is raisedthrough local taxation. Rural areas, especially those that have lower taxbases, can rely on a government redistribution of tax revenues in order toclose any wide gaps between them and the wealthier, more urban municipalities.In Finland, autonomy at the local level translates into a sense of sharedresponsibility and trust in government. It allows for independence and flexibilitywithin the education system. Municipalities determine how to allocatethe budget to meet local education needs. Local administrators decidefor themselves how to monitor and assess school performance within theirdistricts. National school inspections no longer exist, so comparisonsbetween schools are never made public and no administrator fears thethreat or consequences of public shame.PISA: Measured Success & Conventional MetricsDespite a decentralized system of independently operating schools,Finnish students uniformly excel. In the most celebrated example, Finlandranks at the very top among fifteen year-olds in the Program for InternationalStudent Assessment (PISA). In 2006, Finland’s students collectivelyoutperformed all other OECD countries in science and mathematics, andall but one country in reading. Variation between regions in Finland wasthe smallest of all participating nations. Speculation and considerationwhy this is the case, year after year, has many wondering what is the secretingredient in Finnish schools and the education system.The successful performance of Finnish students seems to be attributableto a web of interrelated factors having to do with comprehensive pedagogy,students’ own interests and leisure activities, the structure of theeducation system, teacher education, school practices and, in the end,Finnish culture.The Finnish Success in Pisa – And Some Reasons Behind ItSuccess did not happen overnight, but rather over a forty-year period ofeducation reform. Today, the Ministry of Education proudly points to thecurrent structure of its education system, the extensive services it offers itsstudents, and the high quality of its teachers.Ironically, for a nation whose education system has moved away froma system of standardized testing, Finnish students continue to outperformnearly all their peers. There are aspects of the PISA exam that favour Fin-150