Around 50 years ago, the newly independent Finland identified education as a key nation-building exercise. Ever since, Finland’s public school system has been of interest to other countries.

Pasi Sahlberg, Director General of the Centre for International Mobility and Cooperation in Helsinki, is the Finnish herald of educational success. A teacher by trade, Sahlberg recently addressed PPTA and NZEI conferences in New Zealand. His non-dogmatic approach in explaining the successful reform of Finland’s education system was refreshing, but he did caution that it might not be possible to replicate its success in other countries.

All schools in Finland are publicly funded, but control is decentralised, and positive discrimination is widely practised to funnel more resources to students with greater need. In fact, more than a third of Finnish students receive some kind of early schooling assistance. The Finns adopt a ‘whatever it takes’ approach to ensure all children benefit from high quality education in their own communities.

New Zealand is also committed to equality of educational opportunity; however, results at the lower end are disappointing. Underperforming schools in New Zealand have two distinct characteristics: they are situated in poor areas and have high proportions of Mâori and Polynesian students.
So while New Zealand’s education system performs well in international comparisons, the bottom 20% of students are failing.

So what lessons does Finland hold for New Zealand’s conundrum? Perhaps not many.

There is almost no ethnic diversity in Finland, and 80% of the population is Lutheran. It is an extremely homogenous society.

New Zealand is starkly different. Four significant ethnic groups were recorded in the 2006 Census: 67% European, 14% Mâori, 9% Asian, and 7% Polynesian. 

As a result, comparisons between a heterogeneous settler society such as New Zealand and an old homogenous society such as Finland are not to be taken lightly.

So while there are lessons to be learnt from Finland, and it would be foolish to ignore them, adopting the Finnish education system in New Zealand would be a foolhardy exercise.