Both Singapore and Finland enjoy international repute for the sterling performances of their students in international surveys like PISA and TIMSS. Both countries have also been known to produce students who have done well in international Mathematics olympiads. Singapore students have been known to do well in the Cambridge GCE O and A levels too. For the lay person, these are indicators of good educational systems.

But even then, Singapore’s leaders have repeatedly said that it has to move away from the examination-focus of the country’s education system. It is interesting to note in this video of a lecture by John Seely Brown, he mentioned at the tail end of the video during the Q&A session of a lecture (see video here), that Singapore leaders have indicated to him that while they have done well in international surveys, these surveys are for 20th Century skills not 21st Century skills. In other words, they are near irrelevant.

In explaining their success in international surveys, the Finnish National Board of Education, said that among the reasons for their success is:

“Assessment of both schools’ learning outcomes and pupils is encouraging and supportive in nature. The aim is to produce information that will help schools and pupils to develop. There are no national tests of learning outcomes and no school league tables. Pupils and schools are not compared with each other. National assessments of learning outcomes are based on samples and the key function of assessment is to pinpoint areas requiring further improvement in different subjects and within the entire school system.”

and also:

“Organisation of schoolwork and teaching is guided by a conception of learning where pupils’ own active involvement and interaction with teachers, fellow pupils and the learning environment are important. Pupils process and interpret the information that they absorb on the basis of their prior knowledge structures.”

Here you see that in the Finnish system does not stress on summative assessment of its pupils unlike in Singapore where high stakes national examinations, ranking of students against one another and school league tables (we call it school ranking in Singapore) is the norm. In contrast, teaching and learning in Finland is through the “pupils’ own active involvement and interaction with teachers, fellow pupils and the learning environment are important. Pupils process and interpret the information that they absorb on the basis of their prior knowledge structures.” I will revisit this point in a subsequent post.

The other commonality between the two countries is the centralized steering albeit done in different ways. In Singapore, educational policies are laid out by the Ministry of Education (MOE). In addition to this, the fact that almost all schools in the country are required to do high stakes examinations, it means that the syllabus for almost all the subjects are defined by the University of Cambridge International Examinations (CIE) examination syndicate which works in tandem with the MOE. The MOE is beginning to allow some exceptions to this link with the CIE but such exceptions are only allowed for the more prestigious schools. The MOE does allow schools some degree of autonomy in the daily running but almost all schools must subscribe to its major policies, for example, with regards to ranking and examinations.

In Finland, according to the Finnish National Board of Education:

The education system is flexible and its administration is based on intense delegation and provision of support. Steering is based on objectives set out in the Basic Education Act and Decree and within the National Core Curriculum for Basic Education. Responsibility for provision of education and implementation of objectives rests with local authorities (municipalities).

This devolvement of responsibility gives the Finnish system that flexibility with regards to the running of schools. Furthermore, in the Finnish system, there is greater level of partnership building with relevant institutions and organizations with regards to the educational support that the schools receive. They sought to ensure that:

“Activities at all levels are characterised by interaction and partnership building. In order to develop the school system, there is co-operation between different levels of administration, schools and other sectors of society. Finnish school authorities also co-operate a lot with subject associations and teacher and rector organisations. This has secured strong support for development measures.”

In Singapore, little such interaction and partnership building is done. If they do exist, they are from institutionalized.

The two countries also offer comprehensive education for students. In Finland this is up to the age of sixteen. In Singapore, the Compulsory Education Act made it compulsory for all parents to enroll their children in school till they have completed primary education (twelve years old).  This measures are likely contributors for the two countries relatively good reputation in the educational arena.

So while there are similarities in the two countries’ educational systems, even in the similarities, there are, I believe, important differences that account for the markedly differing character of the two educational systems. I will be delving more about this in subsequent posts.

(to be continued)

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I would like to start off with a look at the similarities in the education system between the two countries, Singapore and Finland. I will discuss the similarities in subsequent posts. Again, please refer to the diagram that I have provided in Part 1 of this series.

If you look at the diagram, the two countries are similar in four areas, namely:

a) in the importance that is attached to education in both countries by the the government and society;

b) both systems are highly regarded around the world with their students having fared well in international surveys and olympiads;

c) both systems have centralized control albeit with some differences; and

d) both provide comprehensive education

Education is given great importance in both the Finnish and Singaporean societies. In Finland, the right to education is enshrined in the country’s constitution. The Finnish National Board of Education re-affirms this on its website. It says:

“The main objective of Finnish education policy is to offer all citizens equal opportunities to receive education, regardless of age, domicile, financial situation, sex or mother tongue. Education is considered to be one of the fundamental rights of all citizens. Firstly, provisions concerning fundamental educational rights guarantee everyone (not just Finnish citizens) the right to free basic education; the provisions also specify compulsory education. Secondly, the public authorities are also obligated to guarantee everyone an equal opportunity to obtain other education besides basic education according to their abilities and special needs, and to develop themselves without being prevented by economic hardship.”

In Finland, there is general consensus that education is important. There is broad political consensus on educational policy. The Finnish people enjoy free education that includes instruction, school materials, school meals, health care, dental care, commuting, special needs education and remedial teaching. At the tertiary level, the World Economic Forum has ranked Finland as top in terms of tertiary enrollment and quality.

Its strong emphasis on education is also seen in the quality of its teachers and the perception that the Finnish people have about teaching as a profession. One has to have a Masters degree to be a teacher in Finland. This alone shows the seriousness of education to the Finnish people. They want to attract the best talents into teaching. Teaching is a highly respected profession in Finland. It is regarded on equal terms as being a lawyer or other professionals.

In Singapore, the government has promulgated a law, the Compulsory Education Act (2000), defining that each citizen is obligated to complete a minimal of ten years of education.

In addition to this, both countries spend a large amount of the budget on education. For example Singapore’s spending on education is about 20 per cent of the country’s annual budget, making it only second to its defense spending. A huge portion of this goes to the provision of a modern infrastructure in the schools, heavily subsidized education, and the high teachers’ pay.

Singapore society also attaches great importance to educational qualifications. It is near impossible to get any decent employment without them even if one has the skills. Parents see schooling as the ticket to a better life and are willing to spend a lot on the children’s education, for example, supporting them with extra tuition classes. They also know the stigma that is attached to failure in school. The Singapore government also sees education as the “great leveler” and also at the same time the route for anyone to rise up in society that the Singapore government claims to be based on meritocracy, a corner stone of its  political philosophy.

(to be continued)

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Two “leading” countries in education, Singapore and Finland had a head-to-head of sorts with regards to how they perceive and take care of their teachers. At the Global Education Competitiveness Summit, a representative of the responsible departments for education in the two countries presented their approach to maintaining the well-being of teachers.

A snapshot of Finland

Low Khah Gek, the Director of the Curriculum, Planning and Development Division (CPDD) of the Ministry of Education represented Singapore’s approach while Timo Lankinen, the Director General of the Finnish National Board of Education represented Finland.

It is interesting to note the differences in approach to teacher welfare and teacher selection. According to Low, in Singapore only the top third of the graduating classes are selected to be teachers. She also mentioned the pre-service and in-service training training that teachers in Singapore are expected to undergo, mentioning the hours of training. She also described the career track of those in the education service adding that the jobs of administrators is the “pinnacle of education service” because of their influence over instruction and the school environment. She also talked about the performance bonuses of between one and three months pay that teachers can get.

In contrast, in the Finnish system, Mr Lankinen says that in Finland they only have a “very limited” performance pay. For him what is more pressing is “how to maintain good working conditions in school” as Finland’s leaders feel that such good conditions are essential to luring talented people into the classrooms and retaining them there.

In response to a question about America’s current pre-occupation with NCLB and testing, he said that Finland only tests representative samples of students, primarily as a way to gauge trends in school performance and teachers routinely assess students’ progress in class in order to improve instruction. According to him, to the Finns, “having well-trained and educated teachers” is more important to raising student achievement. He says in Finland, “people dream to be teachers.”

I cannot help feel that in Singapore the approach is to see teacher welfare as just a case of paying them and they will keep quiet about the working conditions. Bear in mind also the civil service code in Singapore of not criticizing the service in public. The Singapore approach is very impersonal. It is all about numbers. Tests are the norm in Singapore schools because the only measure of student achievement are written tests. They didn’t mention what Singapore’s representative means by performance bonus for good instruction. It usually means how well the students do on high stakes examinations. Singapore also harps on numbers in terms of hours of teachers training. It is numbers and numbers and more numbers. From this love affair with numbers you can see that Singapore’s approach is very administrative and seldom from the teaching point of view. It is therefore no surprise that someone high up in the administration says that the job of administrators is the pinnacle of the service.

Maybe another statistic is worth mentioning. According to a Straits Times report, teachers form the highest proportion of patients at the Institute of Mental Health (IMH) in Singapore. Of course, this wasn’t mention at the summit.

So which approach do you think is more enlightened?