A different education system

In China, parents around me send their kids to formal education environments starting from the age of two. There's a strong focus on testing - even some popular kindergartens and primary schools have exams and parental interviews as part of their admissions process.

The key to lifelong success seems to be admission to a top-tier undergraduate program, which is gatekept by exams - IB, SAT/ACT, or gaokao, depending on which post-secondary path one takes. The specters of these impartial arbiters for university entrance cast long shadows, influencing what is taught in secondary schools and primary schools throughout the country. Parents face significant stress trying to get their children into the best schools; buying an apartment in a good school district (学区房) is a common practice in a city such as Shanghai. Some fly to the United States to give birth, so that their children will have foreign passports and therefore are eligible to attend international schools.

All of this is quite perplexing to me, a new parent. It may be partly because I remember life growing up in Canada as being quite relaxed. I never attended any after-school classes, nor did my sister. Actually, my sister didn't begin attending a school of any kind until she was five years old, and yet I'm pretty sure she didn't become disadvantaged academically because of that (she received the Governor General's medal in both high school and university, and she's now a postdoctoral researcher at Stanford).

It makes me wonder whether the current education system actually works, or whether there are feasible alternatives. The answer seems to be yes. I've found an interesting case that I'll share in the remainder of today's post.

The Finnish education system is surprisingly different.

In Finland, formal compulsory education does not begin until children are seven years old. However, there is free universal daycare from the age of eight months to five years, and free "preschool/kindergarten" at age six. The key distinction is that before compulsory education begins, daycare and preschool is based around play. According to one Finnish educator, "You are not taught, you learn. The children learn through playing. This philosophy is put into practice in all the schools we visited, in what the teachers say, and in all that one sees."

During compulsory schooling (grades 1-9), there is minimal homework  and there are few to no exams. Schools create their own curriculums. In many cases, verbal assessments are used instead of formal grades.

All of the above seem like a recipe for academic disaster.

And yet, according to research from the World Economic Forum, Finland ranks either first or among the top three globally on all measures of competitiveness related to education quality. It achieves this while being the happiest country in the world for four years in a row. Meanwhile, the traditional Asian academic powerhouses (China, Japan, Korea, Singapore, Hong Kong) are known for student suicides due to academic pressure. In Japan, suicide is the leading cause of death in children aged 10-19.

In Finland, there are no gifted programs and no separation of students with differing academic abilities. The focus is on an equitable allocation of educational resources across all schools and all classrooms. There is no pressure to attend university; about 45% of students attend vocational school instead of upper secondary and university education.

There's a documentary based on research from a Harvard academic that provides some more insight into the Finnish education model. It may not be what we are used to seeing, but I think it's definitely worth learning from.