A. Its comes from kind of a 150 years ago when when finland was actually a very poor country and when 1st the ideas about finland one day being an independent nation started. And then there was the idea that whats the best way for finland to be a nation among nations and the answer warse that if we can raise the kind of cultural of language sticks skills level of the whole population that is the best way for us to become independent and that was actually also the means that was taken the idea to educate everybody in the Finnish Society and thats kind of its still kind of carries on that same idea that the equality is by far the most important principle in the finisher to cations system to education a symbol of collective National Achievement when we see service showing not just fill in the top or near the top of the class of education but also as one of the happiest countries on after haps the happiest country are there how much of that do you think is phillys pray that education security the children are going to get a decent education so is ed to this education contribute to the fill a sense of selfesteem i would say. That International Comparisons there are 3 areas where finland is doing well one of them being education the Human Capital another one being the kind of security of the society the kind of stable us and the 3rd one being equal a t. Whether its going to gender require the quality or other aspects of fi quality and i think these 3 they kind of feed eat each other and they also create another company and which is central and thats trust. The Finnish Society is a trust society and its possible because there is equality in the society and equality comes through the equal Education System and those are the reasons that create the stability in the society so its a kind of virtuous circle happening there at the federal and in terms of achieving Educational Excellence been so kicks against the accepted wisdom for the students go to school later in life not not until the. A good to school leatham the day we have a shortage of school day than the international average for the students have less homework so it was the very opposite of the the other countries which School Highly in the piece are rankings the far Eastern Countries which have a very intensive schooling with very hard what lots of homework a drive for full excellence how could finland achieve what it does counterfactual going against the grain or working harder studying more. Hyper southwark we want our children to have a life that they have other aspects in their life than only going to school and understanding that the well being and learning are strongly connected that if theres no wellbeing theres no learning if the breakfast is not eaten in the morning the learning wont happen and that also kind of is connected to the idea that do you have time for your family you have time to your friends you have time to hold b. S. Its a kind of more holistic way of looking for. Its kind of growing into humanity in practice means that only this one little disputed finish excellence but the must be false still in the the Education System and theres always room for improvement what would you identify as the areas with finland wants to drive forward to achieve even more one thing that needs to change is that in finland the teacher which is kind of very very central strength in her system the teacher profession is a very kind of individualistic profession in finland that teachers do to join up and work and develop below and that we must change we must get the kind of teachers collaborate much much more together to create the School Community that supports the learning in order to kind of maintain the quality in our system the schools and the teachers they need more support structures and mechanisms that we have had earlier when the change is faster it means that theres a danger that the kind of cards will be dealt again and that some will get good cards and some others will get bad guards and we dont want that to happen we want to make sure that no matter which school. A family lives close to the closest school is a good school. And how about Higher Education and father education. I mean International Standards developed countries the number of finns going to university is 45 percent which is school of than one would many countries is that a strength for a witness does that mean you emphasize implication of education or does it just been that your friends want to go out into the world to know what place as opposed to spending time with the best and the thing we are very happy with is ok chanology cation in finland is actually very popular that its gone off half and half that go to the general secondary and code to the vocational side and thats a good thing but were seeing that the changes in the working life in the future will mean that we have to increase the percentage of people go into the to the turret 3 level to the University Level and thats what were aiming at to to increase those presented to us and at the same time we must also make changes halward the learning in the University Sector is happening theres clearly a need there also to kind of combine academic and the kind of practical side the kind of theory of practice kind of involvement by reflection in a much much stronger way how easy is it to translate finnish education to another society is that its not possible or or really should people remember that for this education is a product of finland as well as being a good Education System that so we dont see that we have the secret of education were faced with the same challenge these other nations are we have a good starting point but the challenges for futures are kind of samael or. And for that reason to be a very committed to International Corporation and Development Work together with other nations and i think we can all learn and with that kind of an approach now ali parents or across the world what should list program what are you to how the children are going to do the actions to see the children do well at school and excel. I was supposed normally they would say well what card or higher truth to make sure you do your homework. And then the finish example seems to point in the opposite direction is there a message you could love to pivots across the world as the as they fret about the future a bit is that move to finland. Is a is there Something Else you could say to them to give comfort to anxious people wanting their children to do the best they can. Well formal finneys experiences i think 2 things that i would like to say the 1st one being that the best thing a parent can do is to be interested in the childs life and learning and the 2nd one is the thing that weve ballyhoo in finland that makes sure that. We are not kind of stressing our children too much its not only that you kind of learn things but its also the ability for you what you can do with what you learned and there we come to the question again with the with the well being that you that the child satisfaction in life is also there course thats really where the kind of inner motivations to learn new things in the future and kind of prosper in life actually comes from it does not happen if youre too stressed too young. In order to celebrate the success of finish education i brought with me the the early simon quick though you probably know that till the whiskey or the. Less alcoholic substances but if its all call it only scotch whiskey nothing else works and then pass that road and all your friends and toast to the new year and finish education thank you so much. Coming up after the break we answer the question on whether excellence in education has been built on the early use on lifelong continuing education joining us. My name is sucking. Mr jackson. Seeds which i. Know. Well enough. To cause him to you know the movie. You know. The speech and i use does he make it very very easy to teach school and try to teach to people. Who people who comes to clubs do really hes trying to fit a music that. I love to jazz because he makes me happy i love he does because he makes me happy playing moved. And when you go to church. You know. Im im. Im. Max and stacey are continuing on our south american tour and as you can see behind me we are in Rio De Janeiro oh my god so beautiful so much going on this is a country in transition. And were going to fulfill the repeated promises of politics to the people and thomas says you know weve all but. You want to. Know. The telling. The washington census led by the United States says the liberal world order must be defended at almost all costs said differently the Foreign Policy blah demands the post cold war you know polar moment be preserved but alas it would seem multifold is already. Welcome back to helsinki im not just for of among the reasons why its finland tuckey which is the real homeless a necklace or santa clause im not of course because there are precious few rain deals and talking and to finish department of education of just made it official because they have read just a picky thats the finished celebration of christmas with unesco so its all there and the greed and i mean it is education that its led the way in funny social services its not the real reason for finland being the happiest country on f. L e education and then continuing education through life. I know you wrote the youre head of innovation the the National Board for education and from one. To the charge occasions do spectacularly well by piece a standard spent on national measurement. Part of those one of them is that phyllis children spend less time in school they do less homework than most comparable countries yet they seem to do better at school so how do you explain the the products that phyllis shows seem to not to be asked to do as much in formal schooling but end up with better results well we believe that its important that children have time to play and have healthy sense spend time with their parents so we dont believe that by increasing the amount of time in school or by increasing the amount of homework given you can get better results children are children and they learn by playing they learn by being their peers and parents then it takes place everywhere not only in the School Building no formal education starts its a sudden finland again later than many other countries but theres a lot of work goes into Child Development before the interested in baby boxes which is a long standing policy in finland so we certainly copied by scotland so how does that part of a continuing strand of Child Development i think that has supported families very well in the child box there is always a book for example which creates a positive atmosphere for the parents to read to the child since the very beginning and i think the benefits that we have in the society are excellent both for the life of the lobby and so this is a by almost like a cot given to each family in that when they have a child and has some some goodies that things are useful for bringing up babies one. Longstanding this policy of little since 1000. 00 thirtys so you think of all these advantages and encouragement for having children all these trial centered policies the foolish profit would be a bit higher than other countries but its actually a bit lower than comparable countries can you explain love pearls yeah weve been discussing this a lot in the society during the past year and i dont think we know the answer but when you talk to young adults nowadays they look at the world and their own life differently there are issues like Climate Change for example that they consider seriously the 11 obstacle for having a family and also the working life is very different now my generation for example we knew that when we had education in finland we were guaranteed to have a job nowadays its different young people need to create their own professions and jobs so all these things seem to be the factors in their mind today why they are hesitant of having children and this is the objective of government policy to increase the finnish perforate and National Interests youve been discussing how Education Innovation might help of. Well the National Discussion is going on also at the parliament about this but. There are different opinions on that and of course the government is trying to support the families also financially and there is a discussion that maybe we should have a 2 year preprimary education instead of having one year prior preprimary education so this will be look into now during this government term and some experiments will begin at the finish National Agency for education we havent been discussing this very much except that we want the energy childhood education and care quality be excellent and we just are implementing the 1st curriculum and we hope that we will get good quality education for every child so 20 years since the piece of the 1st piece of the o. E. C. D. An International Compact or study was released what was really. A surprise for finnish education is like yourself or the jesus it confirms what we we knew all along it was a surprise i was attending an International Education network in the United States at the time when the 1st results came out and all the delegates including us finish said that this must be a nice day and the so we were very astonished we didnt really think much of it but. We dont learn for peace we learn for life but since then weve been very fortunate to have good learning outcomes you know looking to the future ahead of the innovation that would be could you put your finger on one aspect of innovation but you think thats going to be our next breakthrough where were going to lead the field and finish education. This is a hard question but if we dont ask the students what they would like their Education System or learning or a scorpion lie there were missing some innovations that we could build on. Thank you so much for for giving us that insight and in order to toss the continuing success of casualty caisson can represent if the others arent quick its was only scotch in the quick and then passed round your fellow educational thank you very much i appreciate it thank you thank you im no delighted to be joined by one of finlands leading educationalists professor in the storm 1st in the storm because the days gone by scotland was widely seen the leading educational system in the world and and that reputation continued lower after perhaps evidence suggested that it was slipping back are you worried that the same thing may happen to finland it is actually happening to some extent and i think. Yeah it is a concern it is even a reason to worry about because it has to do especially that the greatest strength of the Finnish School system is literacy basically we have always been a very literate country for various historical reasons including the fact that we have been rather monocultural society in which the Protestant Church has had a very dominant position and that church required that people should be able to read even to get married. Some some luck to sort of scotland of course yes yes so in terms of the village approach no with that if we take an analogy with philanthropist under come legally you know whos building libraries across the world to give the the working classes of. The time of the 19th and 20th century access to to the lemming does define least education no stress the ability of students to access from this modern technology the the information that they need is that what is meant by little see in the world of needs im glad that you took up the example of libraries you know finland has the densest library and that Public Library network in the world and every municipality has at least one by every if not more so its not only the School System as such but its the way these services that promote human capabilities form a kind of an internet linked network of infrastructure and services and this is too often taken for granted here if a thing goes abroad it realizes that its very difficult to find a Public Library and make maybe even more difficult to get access to books if you get to the library and the site partly explained in the apartment part of the oaks. The Police Education has excelled into lustily the spite the fact that these people spend less time at school have less homework and soon to be a little much less pressurised environment than the many of the contemporaries for example in the far Eastern Countries who spend perhaps twice as long as school of several times as much hope does the reading outside the School Environment is a positive the explanation for the success absolutely i think part of the explanation is that we have not enough not too much schooling finished aside that puts a pretty heavy emphasis on on the kids Self Determination and even play the idea is that they have to find their own way and they have to find their own way to flourish and that its not just the single road measurable with grades and so on so we dont have any National Tests we dont even have any inspections in the schools schools are very autonomous in this sense of course thats possible because also the teachers are very highly educated they all have masters degrees and they are pretty proud professionals and this means that they make the decisions together with the parents and and kids my youngest son is 14 and he before this interview had told me to tell them one thing its that here they trust us we can we call our teachers by the 1st name and the idea of taking kids seriously as. Partners in in learning and teachers of course have a much longer relationship with students in finland and compassing several years as opposed to just the it teacher for the individual subject for a period for one year the teachers seem to have a much more developed relationship with the students thats 2 if youre lucky in the 1st 6 years of comprehensive school you have. One single teacher this means that there is continue with the the relationship between the teacher and the students becomes much more and thats a reciprocal in many schools the students already in lower primary grades they feel that they own the school this is all the work place we move here as we want we are not here to be disciplined so i think that thats a kind of a secret yes thank you cant make people learn they have to find their own way thats a very very much. Well here at the Christmas Market in helsinki theres more than enough contentment to go around but fans seem to have led the secret not just the being many at christmas but being nearly all year the same that fans dont like cutthroat competition dont like the fast and the thing but if thats the case ironically its propelled them to 1st place in the world happy less index is recognized by the United Nations in terms of education as welfare is easy to see in practical terms what is attractive about the for the system snow that the children will receive at least a decent education and students know the good to life unburdened by tens of thousands of euros of debt. For contentment but of course education as weve also here is deeply in bude in the Finnish National consciousness being excellent and they give cation as an accolade for the whole country next week well look at the for the social and political model as also bread contentment so until you join the sentiments many christmas and a happy new year from helsinki. Is this is a sticker from a water bottle found in the stomach of a fish the brand is part of the Cocacola Company which sells millions of bottles of soda every day the idea was that lets tell consumers there are the bad was there the litter bugs are trying this way industry should be blamed for all this waste the company has long promised to reuse the plastic. That seems cool sets for their plastic kristie take away and on your birthday on your own that special projects funded me. On im your best bet is the end of infinity but for now the mountains of waste only grow higher. Is your media a reflection of reality. In a world transformed. What will make you feel safe from. The isolation community. Are you going the right way or are you being led so. Direct. What is true what is faith. In the world corrupted you need to descend. To join us in the depths. Or a maybe in the shallowness. If you really. Believe. That. In the. U. S. President ial Michael Bloomberg admits his team used prison labor to make. Join the demonstrations against. Could see. From 42 to 64. And while parts Subsaharan Africa suffer from a chronic shortage of prescription painkillers we look at. National im sean thomas