Finnish Education in the 21st Century: Paradoxes and Visions

Since the publication of the 2000 PISA results highlighting Finland’s school children ranking #1 in the world for reading, and #3 for mathematics and science, fascination with Finland’s educational system has piqued the interest of educational researchers worldwide. Researchers have been captivated by the paradoxes of the Finnish education system: teach less, learn more; test less, learn more; and educational equity through growing diversity (Sahlberg, 2015). Starting with the 2012 PISA results and continuing with the 2015 scores, Finnish educators are now concerned about the downward trend in the data, with their students losing ground in reading, math and science and scores hovering around ranking 10th in the world. In this article, I report on the new Finnish vision of education, the newly revised national curriculum, as well as the newly emerging gender gap in their student achievement, as Finnish educators endeavor to maintain their previous track record of educational equity and attainment for all students