In a series of articles, we will look at several educational systems, different from each other as a model, in countries with different cultural characteristics and mentality, located on different continents.
Finland
In Finland, compulsory education starts at the age of 6. It is pre-school, free and 4 hours a day. The main goal at this age is not to accumulate knowledge, but to play games and create a stimulating environment for holistic development with peers. Children are encouraged to take initiative. Schools are self-governing. Until the 9th grade, everyone is taught the same and has national assessment criteria for all subjects. At the same time, there are no national tests in secondary schools.
The Finnish miracle - this is what world experts call the education system in this Scandinavian country. The miracle is that the education system there is radically different from most in Western Europe and the USA. In Finland, students do not have homework and do not take standardized tests and matriculation exams. The reason for this is that the Ministry of Education believes that children and adolescents should enjoy the best years of their lives. When there are any knowledge tests, they are in the form of open-ended questions so that students can demonstrate real knowledge and skills, not just guess the answer. Students do not study to prepare well for the upcoming exams and matriculation exams, but to gain real knowledge. They want to know, and the system helps them not to lose their primary human curiosity, characteristic only of small children in our country. That is why the lessons are not structured uniformly. Each teacher is free to choose a teaching methodology and what material to teach. At the same time, the mentality of the parents is "broad" - they do not pressure their children to necessarily have high grades in all subjects. This avoids unnecessary stress and allows students to concentrate on learning and applying their knowledge and skills, not on how they will be assessed.
Another significant difference with most educational systems is the fact that in Finland schools and universities are not divided into prestigious and not so much. All educational institutions offer the same quality of education, which puts children on an equal footing. They simply enroll in the nearest neighborhood school. This equality provides prerequisites for schools and universities not to compete with each other, but to cooperate and build connections to build a unified educational system. If a school discovers a new teaching approach that is successful, it shares it with others to maintain the overall level of quality of education. In contrast to Bulgaria, where universities and schools, because of the delegated budgets, have long entered into direct competition and have shifted their focus; their main purpose is to show which educational institution is more prestigious, not to educate.
The following characteristic of Finnish education partially coincides with the new changes implemented in our country. In Finland, students at the age of 16 have the opportunity to choose how to continue their education - to train for a profession or an academic career. When choosing a profession, they are trained in polytechnic schools and institutes, where they acquire more practical skills. If they want an academic career, they prepare to enter a university. about 43% of the students choose vocational education. And here comes the difference, which stems mainly from the mentality and attitudes in society. In our country, higher education tends to be devalued, because it is a matter of "prestige" for your child to graduate from higher education. It is a fact that today it is easier to get accepted to a university in Bulgaria than to graduate from high school. Young people go to higher education under compulsion, not because of their internal natural needs, because the whole system in our country is wrong. Without the cherished university diploma, it is practically difficult to find a well-paid job. The result is deplorable - young people absorb academic theory, and business is in dire need of practical specialists, especially in applied and engineering sciences. Forced to study something to which they have no affinity, but which is "prestigious", young people do not fully absorb the knowledge of the specialty they have chosen and often after graduation work in a completely different field. Unlike Finland, where those who go into a profession rather than academia have good careers and are well paid
Canada
According to a study by the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD), which tracks the development of education around the world, Canada is listed as the country with the most educated nation. The influence of different educational systems is observed in different provinces. Among English-speakers, the Scottish system is strongest, while in the French-speaking part they prefer the French model. But despite this decentralization, the high level of education in Canada speaks mostly of the fact that Canadian children show the best results at international exhibitions in the field of informatics, mathematics and natural sciences.
What is specific and different about our education system is the student evaluation system. It varies depending on the level of education (secondary or higher) and according to the educational institution. Assessments are divided into four categories and weighted differently – thinking, knowledge, inquiry and communication. In practice, in mathematics classes, for example, which are loaded with a lot of scientific data, knowledge is given more weight than communication, while in an English class, for example, it is the exact opposite.
In most Canadian provinces, a letter grading system is used - from A to F, or it is graded in percentages - from 0 to 100 %, with A = 90 and above %, B = 80 - 89%, C = 70 - 79%, etc. n. . The signs + and - are added to the letters, which specify the grade - so A+ is a better grade than A-.
The articles are part of a master's thesis on the topic "Radical reform in education - individuality instead of unification" in the specialty of Pedagogy for the acquisition of the qualification "teacher of economic disciplines" at the IU - Varna, protected with Excellent.
© 2023 Iliana Dechkova