Simply the best! Or is it?

When reading the "Metro" newspaper, one easily finds a certain thing in each day's paper: the public section where people are ALWAYS complaining how s**tty place Finland is to live in. Nothing works, taxes are high, someone even declares loadly that "Finland is a police state and we have no rights!" Many times I have wondered where does this all come from since my perspective is very different... Maybe because I have seen it being a lot worse.

Taxes are high. Yes. I do agree. And our tax system needs some updating. BUT. We have free education. How many would have to give up on higher education if one should pay for it for example 30 000€ / year?

We also have free medical care. Yes, it sometimes doesn't work perfectly and the queues are quite long but still in a case of heart attack you will be taken to the nearest hospital. If this would happen in the USA, you would be taken to the hospital your insurance can cover and even worse, without an insurance your chances of surviving wouldn't be that good.

Finland is clean. We don't even know how much we should appreciate this. We have an excellent system of taking care of the waste. We even recycle. Seen many developing countries I have learned to respect this. Our city doesn't smell. We can breathe fresh air even in the capital city.  Everything is organized. We have to wait our turn in line but at least it is fair. Imagine the situation where everyone would just push themselves in to the counter trying to be the first one. This is everyday in many countries. With the Finnish "sisu", how many broken noses would there be at the end of the day?

Freedom of speech. We can say what we think. We can even write it to a newspaper and we won't get arrested. It gives us the freedom to think and believe in whatever we like.

Four seasons. Oh yes, winters are cold. Freezing more like! But have you ever considered how many bacteria it kills. We don't have dengue-fever. In summer nights we don't have to be afraid of malaria mosquitoes. Isn't it great! And once after the long cold winter we get to enjoy our beautiful summer by clean lakes and forests. And we do take the most out of it.

We have been chosen to be the best place to live, and I do believe that we earn our spot.

How do YOU see it?

Tuition fees – the boogeyman in the closet

If no one else is willing to say it, I will: why do we need to educate foreign students for free when we Finns cannot study anywhere outside of Finland for free? The problem we are facing now is that we are giving education for free for future experts, who as foreign students rarely stay here in Finland after their graduation. Therefore they are not to our society's benefit in the long run by paying taxes etc. - they only exploit it. 

Many studies have shown that the quality of our educational system is high. So why do we insist on handing out our expertise for free when we should be benefiting from it financially. With tuition fees collected from all foreign students including those from the EU, the higher education institutions could improve the quality of teaching even further. Instead of doing this, we simply refuse to even consider having tuition fees for foreign students out of fear that someday they might also apply to us, the Finnish students. The tuition fees could be smaller than for example in Great Britain, this way foreign students would still favour our universities.

Have we so little faith in our most valuable asset and in our equality based society that we are willing to let others exploit our system and us for nothing?  

What to learn from Finnish educational system?

“Numerous international surveys have proved it: Finnish basic education is at the top of the table. High-quality education based on equal opportunity has otherwise played a key role in the success story of Finnish society. Education has created prosperity, safeguarded democracy and evened out differences between regions and social classes.” (Country Brand Report)

As the report “Mission for Finland!” states, one of Finland’s strengths is its excellent comprehensive school system and high quality teacher training. Every teacher in Finland is required to have a Master’s degree, the goal of it being that teachers know their subjects and possess good pedagogical skills to share their knowledge. (Note: The reports focuses on comprehensive school system mainly, we’ll write more about higher education later on.)

Education is free in Finland, with a few exceptions, which ensures same opportunities to every child no matter their background and previous education. Until upper secondary school or vocational school meals are free for all students. In universities and universities of applied sciences meals cost usually less than 3 € since KELA, The Social Insurance Institution of Finland pays part of a meal price. This ensures that every child may eat at least one warm meal every day. According to school cooks, kids eat the most on Mondays, after a weekend at home where sometimes meals might be a bit different. A hungry brain needs to eat, too!

One of the report’s titles “Finnish teachers know how to laugh” summarises well the friendly and non-hierarchical relationship between pupils and teachers in Finland. Especially our German friends living in Finland have been surprised about how easygoing Finnish teachers can be with kids. Back in their country a primary school teacher or a university professor is always THE authority. Indeed, a distant and formal relationship is more of a rule, not an exception. One could think that a child or anybody learns better in a safe environment where help and support is easy to ask and get.

Finnish kids have succeeded really well in PISA researches (Programme for International Student Assessment). According to the Finnish Country Brand Report, the PISA comparison evaluates not only 15-year-olds skills in mathematics, science, reading and problem solving but also children’s attitudes towards studying.

Young Finns were ranked high in 2003 in 2006 when PISA’s foci were on mathematics and science, respectively. Moreover, the Country Brand Report refers to another international survey researching young people’s social skills. Apparently Finland did well here, too but it appears that despite the knowledge on social matters, young Finns don’t actually put their skills into practice. Does our respect for silence, personal space and just a little small talk turn into poor manners? A foreigner knowing barely anything about Finland might easily understand us wrongly, don’t you think. The Finnish language doesn’t even have a proper word for English “please” or French “s’il vous plaît” and as for our experience, hearing “anteeksi” when someone pushes you happens more rarely in Finland than hearing “excuse me” from a foreigner.

Comprehensive schools obtained great results in surveys such as PISA and foreign representatives visit our schools to learn from us. Free education and free school meals would surely do good for students in countries where only the wealthy can afford education.

We can be very proud of us and keep up the good work but how could we develop our education system further? How to turn social skills from theory to practice? Should we start kissing cheeks or have kids go for lunch at home?

Who is Talkative Finland?

We are alter egos of a few students who were inspired by the Country Brand Report of Finland. The report

published 25 November 2010 claims that “in 2030 Finland will be the problem-solver of the world” thanks to its solution-focused approach to problems. Three strengths of Finland are discussed in the report – functionality, nature and education. We’ll write about these themes and any other topic related somehow to Finland.

Our aim is to raise discussion on Finland’s country brand especially among students and to have their voices heard. We wish to create awareness of Finland both nationally and globally. The views expressed in the blog are not related to the Country Brand Report. Whenever we write about ideas or topics discussed in the report, we make a clear reference to it.

All comments and article links related to the topics discussed here are welcome! Feel free to share your experiences of Finland no matter if you are a Finn or a foreigner.

What could Finland teach to you or your country, what could Finns learn from you?

General rules of the blog:

• Behave yourself - comment in a respectful manner
• Try to justify your arguments
• Participate actively!