Report on Finland

[ryon_antoine]

Hello,

Currently studying in IT, I have had a course about culture differences around the world and how to manage cultural differences, to adapt/cope & benefit from cultural differences.

One part of our exam is to write a report on a country of our choice, about the political, economical, legal, educational system and about some culture values.

As I'm going to study in Finland (very soon, 1 week remaining before the flight ), I decided to make my report on Finland.

I finally finished it today, and I would like you to review it if you don't mind. Please do not focus to much on my English grammar and spelling, which may not be so good, but more on what I say. There is some diagrams in my report, these are from the lessons we had.

So the report is here -> http://antoine.ryon.free.fr/project-ge44.pdf

Thank you very much for your comments

Regards

Antoine

[Hank W.]

You'll be fine if you remember two things. A lot of toffee and a straight jacket. The straight jacket will stop you from rotating your arms so you will not fly away, and the toffee will keep your French discussion level at a commonly acceptable level.

I hope if you have not forgotten any of the stereotypes from the list, but after you come to study here, remember then to write a second report of what the real differences were.

[EP]

I didn´t see any mistakes there. The only thing I didn´t get is the part of adult education in universities.

[SGJ]

It might well be worth mentioning that even though the presidency used to be like in the French system, the powers of the president are very limited nowadays. Most important power of the president is the power to appoint certain officials, such as judges of the supreme court. But since Tarja Halonen decided to exercise this power regarding some appointments in Bank of Finland against the wishes of some other government people, there have been continuous calls to reduce the presidency into a purely ceremonial one, such as in Germany for example.

You defining Finland as a mixed economy does not match your own definition of mixed economy. You state that "A Mixed Economy is a mixed of these 2 systems, with some companies stateowned and others private. The prices are subject to variation in production for the private companies, but in the state-owned companies the government fixes the prices and theproduction level."

Although state owns some corporations, the government does not fix the prices and production level in those companies. These are determined in the marketplace just as in free market economy.

Traditionally Finland has been defined as "puitetalous", a term hard to translate. Basicly that means a regulated market economy, but that might have been just a buzzword to keep the socialists at bay, since I havent seen it used anywhere for at least a decade.

[ryon_antoine]

Thank you very much for these remarks, I made some changes to be clearer

Regards

Antoine

PS @ Hank : French are not so talkative...

[Rosamunda]

Political system... the parliamentary elections are based on an "open list" system of proportional representation (so are municipal elections). Difficult to explain but it invariably leads to a coalition govt. The current one being composed of Conservatives, Centre Party, Swedish People's party and the Greens.

Education. You start the second paragraph with: after the primary school there is a choice of academic or vocational training. No quite true. The choice comes after COMPREHENSIVE school (ie after 9th grade). From grades 1-9 (ie from 7-16 yrs) all students follow the National Core Curriculum which was last updated in 2007. So, all schools teach the same programme. Finland has ranked top in the OECD PISA surveys on literacy recently. There is almost no private schooling (a couple of schools in Helsinki). There is a large number of schools offering language immersion programmes where children are taught in a foreign language from the first grade.

You made no mention of the second national language - Swedish (or I missed it). The Swedish speaking minority has certain rights, namely in Education and all dealings with the public sector.

Finally.... usually books on Finland make a mention of "silence". The Finns attach considerable importance to the art of silence (knowing when not to say anything)... you might want to google that a bit more (or use the search on here).

HTH.

Anyway.... welcome to Finland.

[Hank W.]

Traditionally Finland has been defined as "puitetalous", a term hard to translate. Basicly that means a regulated market economy, but that might have been just a buzzword to keep the socialists at bay, since I havent seen it used anywhere for at least a decade.

I think that collapsed with joining to the EU, as now you cannot "kick homewards" any more. Back say in the 1980's before the recession it was still the de facto way of doing things. The upheavel of the 1990's upheaved a lot of stuff. Say look at Stora-Enso and the Kemijärvi plant... imagine that happening in the 1970's???