Dear Professor,
The sharing of Mr. Joel Jayme last January 15 made me learn about the structure of education in Finland and I summarized it here:
Duration of compulsory education: Age of entry: 7 Age of exit: 16. The structure of school system is Basic and the type of school providing this education is comprehensive school. The length of program in years is 9 years from ages 7 to 16. The certificate/diploma awarded is School Leaving Certificate.
General Secondary: Type of school providing this education: General upper secondary education. Length of program in years: 3 Age level from: 16 to 19. Certificate/diploma awarded: (General Upper Secondary School Certificate); (Certificate of Matriculation)
Vocational Secondary: Type of school providing this education: Vocational upper secondary education: Length of program in years: 3 Age level from: 16 to 19. Certificate/diploma awarded: (Vocational Qualification Certificate).
After completing 9-year basic education, students can choose between general upper secondary education and vocational upper secondary education: 1) general upper secondary school provides general education leading to the national Matriculation examination, which gives eligibility to all forms of higher education; 2) vocational upper secondary education may be organized in vocational education institutions or in the form of apprenticeship training. An (initial) Vocational Qualification takes three years to complete and gives eligibility to all forms of higher education. In vocational, further education and training is also possible to obtain. Further Vocational Qualifications and Specialist Vocational Qualifications which can only be taken as competence-based examinations and are mainly intended for employed adults.
The higher education system of Finland is binary. It comprises Universities and Polytechnics. The Finnish higher education system comprises 20 universities and 29 polytechnics. Ten of the universities are multi-faculty universities and ten are specialized institutions. All universities engage in both education and research and have the right to award doctorates. The polytechnics are multi-field institutions of professional higher education. They are specialized in applied research and development. Universities award first cycle university degrees second cycle university degrees and third cycle scientific post-graduate degrees. Polytechnics award first cycle polytechnic degrees and second cycle polytechnic degrees.
I realized that our educational system is quite different from them because, we have only ten years in elementary and high school educational. Theirs are 12 years up and they have middle school or junior high school in preparation for those who will not enroll in college. If they won’t enroll, they have already the knowledge and skill to support their future and a job to fall back to.
Sometimes it is not about the education of a person but the values he has as an individual. There are many cases that an educated person acts like having not gone to school after all. I am talking about some of our coworkers who knew the laws and their authority but they did not use it properly, and all they did were engaging in taking advantage of the ignorance of others. Sometimes they engaged in corruption, not only in the form of money but of the ability of their employees and subordinates.
So maybe our educational system should focused more on the behavioral enrichment of each individual. The values integration which should starts in the family as the basic unit in the society then in the community, then in his country and in the world. The parents should also be given talks or symposium about the kind of children we have at present and let them intervene and interfere because they are their children and they should be aware of what is going on in the society and how to guide their children to the road of wellness and success.
Thanks a lot for another chance to learn about education in Finland.
Sally Aguilar
No comments:
Post a Comment