Is it true that any finish school is accessible to anyone?

[hakab]

Hi. I would like to know something basic about finnish basic schools. I heard that any child can choose any finnish basic school as they like outside the designated school based on residence. Is it true? What happens if the school they applied is very remote and needs hours of bus drive, or if the number of applicants exceeds the capacity of the school? If the admission may be limited, is the admission based on the distance, lottery, tests, or parental interviews? Is there a freedom for a school to "choose" pupils that they like to have?

People in Japan are now prasing Finnish school as great and try to reform its education system based on experiences of other countries including Finland. But few people know the reality of the finnish school system. Hope someone can help me to understand it better. Thanks.

Hideo

[Hank W.]

Well if you read trough all this for starters of "the system" basics.

Interesting questions otherwise.

[hakab]

Dear Hank,

Thank you for basic info. I had checked http://www.edu.fi/english/ but did not the site you mentioned. The site says,

"Education is provided in neighbourhood schools or other suitable places which make school travel as short and safe as possible."

Hmmmm, to me still unclear. Judging what is "suitable" may create a conflict between parents and the local authority, at least in the case of Japan. My question is, in reality, how is such a confilict, such as what I raised at the begining, solved in Finnland? What is the general rule? Or is it all case by case?

Hideo
javascript:emoticon(':?')
Confused

Well if you read trough all this for starters of "the system" basics.

Interesting questions otherwise.

[Hank W.]

OK, found this explanation for example from Tampere

Tampere is divided into geographical catchment areas in accordance with which pupils are assigned to schools. The catchment areas have been approved by the Committee on Day Care and Education.

The catchment area is defined by the pupil’s home address. When enrolling, the pupil can express his or her request on the choice of school inside the catchment area. The City assigns a school for each pupil within his or her catchment area.

Pupils can choose another school if a certain subject or focus area is not provided in the school assigned to the pupil. A change of school is also possible on other grounds if there are places available in that school.
Maximum class sizes have been confirmed for each school in grades 7-9, and have also been confirmed in grades 1-6- for teaching groups in comprehensive school. Teaching groups for different subjects are formed on the basis of the total number of pupils in the school and the capacity of classrooms.

Pupils in grades 1-6 and 7-9 who are resident in Tampere have priority for
a study place in a school assigned by the City. If there are places available in the school, even pupils outside the catchment area can be enrolled in that school.
Pupils resident in Tampere have priority in obtaining a place in city-maintained schools, but pupils residing in other municipalities can also apply to schools in Tampere. For pupils residing in other municipalities, decisions on admission to a school are made by the Head of Education.


So basically a school is obliged to take pupils from its catchment area - then what that is depends, say for special education it can be the whole city. There is a bit different thing if you have special needs school, or foreign language education etc. Counties provide free school trips, but they will usually not pay if the child is going to a "non-assigned" school like across the county border except if they approve the reason. Some schools, like the ones having basic education in English can have tests for the language ability of the kids before they enter.

High schools then have a bit of a different system. They usually put the applications in a row by average. So some high schools tend to be a bit more cream-gatherers than others.

What you must understand is that in Finland there is all the time the official to try and have no "better" or "worse" schools - they are very reluctant to publish any statistics on how pupils in different schools perform to avoid parents competing for better schools - or atleast there is not such high competition as I understand is in Japan? Of course there is the thing about location, size, options available etc. bigger schools have more choises for extra tutoring for example, but then again in smaller schools there might be more individual attention. It all depends a bit.

There are some schools with some 'better' reputation but it is all still very democratic. So our system allows one "competition crazy" parent wanting their child into the "right" school once in a while. This system applied to Japan I think would be disasterous, as all the parents would be "competition crazy" except one. Like as in Finland getting into an university is not easy, but not getting in is not a disaster either, and getting into the university cannot be predestined if you went to what kindergarten or what school.

So I think there is a cultural aspect of the competitiveness to consider in evaluating the two systems, as you are asking what do you do when there is a conflict... there are not so many conflicts

[hakab]

Hi, Hank,

I am now very much informed by your explanation and the very relevant web page. I cannot say that I understand the Finnish situation completely since the historical and cultural (social) context should be very different from Japan. However, I understand that the social context is inseparable to what education policy is accepted or not.

Japanese ministry of education has been successfully pursuading the public , at least until a decade ago, that there is little difference between school resouces and quality among public school system. But now there are obviously rich areas and poor areas, and the outcome of students such as college attendance rate are very different, regardless of what schools do better or worse, perhaps.

Thank you!

Hideojavascript:emoticon(':o')
Surprised

[Hank W.]

Japanese ministry of education has been successfully pursuading the public , at least until a decade ago, that there is little difference between school resouces and quality among public school system. But now there are obviously rich areas and poor areas, and the outcome of students such as college attendance rate are very different, regardless of what schools do better or worse, perhaps.

Yes, this aspect is the same as in Finland.

Also there are trends and fashions, if you will, in the college admissions staistics - some departments get a surge of applicants, and some will take almost anyone.. a few years go and the situation changes.

[Hank W.]

I cannot say that I understand the Finnish situation completely since the historical and cultural (social) context should be very different from Japan. However, I understand that the social context is inseparable to what education policy is accepted or not.

Well, I have no other information of the Japanese education system except what I read from Wikipedia, and then from pieces of news about Japan and the university examinations.

Finnish society did have a big change in the 1960's about the education. Before that higher education was for the rich, or those who got to advanced school, but then they "democratized" the learning. However then this was not so good as the children learned in different paces, so they have tried to change the system towards more individual needs based. like many high schools are these days what you call "course module". So there is no grade1, grade 2 but one can spend 2-4 years and study the required courses as well as take the matriculation examination in two years' time.

Also the border between vocational education vs. high school has blurred, these days there are schools where you have both, so one can do a vocational degree as well as get their matriculation examination done. I wish this had been possible in my youth, but then it was still either/or.

[Xochiquetzal]

Finland also doesn't really have the concept of 'elevator' nor cram schools as Japan does.

Honestly, I think Hank W hit the head on the nail with the social aspect of why the Finnish system works here but wouldn't work in Japan. The prestige associated with Todai or one of the elevator schools does not in any way translate in Finnish society, which is, as Hank W stated, democratic about its views. E.g., Helsinki University of Technology is a very good school but it isn't likely that it will greatly impact a person's career if they graduated from there or from a trade school like Evitek.