For years, Finland has been the by-word for a successful education system, perching atop international league tables for literacy and numeracy.
Only Far East countries, such as Singapore and China, outperform the Nordic nation in the influential Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA) rankings.
Politicians and education experts from around the world, including the United Kingdom, have visited Helsinki to identify and replicate the secret of its success.
Which makes it all the more remarkable that Finland is about to embark on one of the most radical education reforms undertaken by a country by scrapping traditional “teaching by subject” in favour of “teaching by topic”.
“This is going to be a big change in education in Finland that we are just beginning,” said Liisa Pohjolainen, who is in charge of youth and adult education in Helsinki.
Pasi Silander, the city’s Development Manager, explained that “what we need now is a different kind of education to prepare people for working life. Young people use quite advanced computers.
“In the past, banks had lots of clerks totting up figures but now that has totally changed. We therefore have to make the changes in education that are necessary for industry and modern society.”
About 70 per cent of the city’s high school teachers have been trained in the new approach.
“We have really changed the mindset. It is quite difficult to get teachers to start and take the first step but teachers who have taken to the new approach say they can’t go back.”
Subject-specific lessons, an hour of history in the morning, an hour of geography in the afternoon, are being phased out for 16-year-olds in the city’s upper schools. They are being replaced by what the Finns call “phenomenon” teaching or teaching by topic.
A teenager studying a vocational course might take “cafeteria services” lessons, which would include elements of mathematics, languages (to help serve foreign customers), writing skills, and communication skills.
More academic pupils would be taught cross-subject topics such as the European Union, which would merge elements of economics, history (of the countries involved), languages, and geography.
There are other changes too, not least to the traditional format that sees rows of pupils sitting passively in front of their teacher, listening to lessons or waiting to be questioned.
Instead, there will be a more collaborative approach, with pupils working in smaller groups to solve problems while improving their communication skills.
Helsinki’s Education Manager, Marjo Kyllonen, who will be presenting her blueprint for change to the council at the end of this month, said: “It is not only Helsinki but the whole of Finland which will be embracing change.
“We really need a rethinking of education and a redesigning of our system, so it prepares our children for the future with the skills that are needed for today and tomorrow.
“There are schools that are teaching in the old fashioned way which was of benefit in the beginning of the 1900s but the needs are not the same and we need something fit for the 21st century.”
Kyllonen has been advocating a “co-teaching” approach to lesson planning, with input from more than one subject specialist. Teachers who embrace this new system can receive a small top-up in salary.
But the reforms have met objections from teachers and heads across Finland, many of whom have spent their lives focusing on a particular subject only to be told to change their approach.
