HS Interview | Solutions to improve learning outcomes must now be found, says head of office Anita Lehikoinen

Fresh ones In the discussion about the Pisa results, many wanted “quick explanations”, but there are none.

This is what the head of the Ministry of Education and Culture says Anita Lehikoinen. Lehikoinen has led the ministry since 2013.

According to the Pisa results published in December, the learning results of young Finns had continued to decline in all measurable subjects. The decline has continued since 2006. The poor results sparked lively discussion.

“It seemed to forget how long the decline in learning outcomes is. Quite a few focused a lot on what has happened recently, such as digital, inclusion and the latest curriculum,” says Lehikoinen.

“Less noticed is that, for example, in the mother tongue, the drop in results was observed at the national level already at the turn of the millennium.”

The fundamentals of the elementary school curriculum came into force in 2014. Teaching based on inclusive thinking was introduced in Finland in 2010. The use of smart devices, on the other hand, has become more common in the 2010s.

Ministerial At the beginning of the year, the management will now start “primary school future work”, which was outlined in the board program.

In practice, the ministry consults extensively with experts from different fields, such as teachers, researchers from different fields, parents and young people. The purpose is to find the changes needed to reverse the long-term trend in the decline in the skills level of children and young people.

The development of the project is monitored by a parliamentary group, which includes representatives of all parliamentary parties.

At this stage, it has not been more concretely defined what the final result of the future work should be.

“Do the basics of the curriculum need to be changed or is there a need to open the Basic Education Act to a greater extent? These things remain to be seen,” says Lehikoinen.

School day is a multifaceted entity that is affected not only by educational policy decisions, but also by the entire development of society.

On the other hand, the skills of Finnish children and young people have weakened for so long now that we have to ask: is it the case that when the phenomenon is considered too complicated, in the end the problem is not tackled properly at all?

“No. I think that such a possibility no longer exists”, says Lehikoinen.

“That's exactly why the future project is being done, that now we have to find such configurations and methods with which to find the ingredients of the solutions. Once and for all.”

“

“We have unusually little homework in Finland.”

Lehikoinen says that at the same time, Finland is participating in a joint project of the OECD countries, in which education issues such as the role of artificial intelligence in education are also being considered.

The head of the office praises the measures already decided by the government, for example the fact that the number of hours per week in elementary school is increased, but at the same time nothing new is added to the curricula. This change will take effect next year.

“It's the right opening. In Finland, we have very short school days and unusually little homework. This world is not getting any easier in terms of competence requirements and thinking skills.”

Pisa results After the publication, the Board of Education under the Ministry of Education, which is responsible for creating curricula, has received criticism.

The latest curriculum emphasizes that the child should be guided to study “self-directed”. It has been criticized a lot in public.

School counselor of the Board of Education Jorma Kauppinen said In an interview with HS in December, that self-control has been understood “completely wrong”. The same has been said, for example, about phenomenon-based learning.

If curriculum terms are constantly misunderstood, should they be clarified somehow?

“Of course you have to. For example, self-directedness does not mean that students are left to learn on their own, but that the student's knowledge and skills gradually develop in such a way that he becomes more self-directed.”

According to Lehikoinen, clarifying matters requires in practice that the ministry and the Board of Education have a closer discussion than before with the organizers of education, i.e. the municipalities.

Leafy reminds that the education system in Finland is very decentralized. In addition to the national curriculum, municipalities and schools also create their own curricula. In addition, in Finland, teachers have quite a lot of power and responsibility for their own teaching method and teaching content.

“We wanted to leave a lot of room for maneuver in local decision-making. I think the time is now ripe for a better understanding of the importance of national guidance as well.”

In other words, should basic schools start being managed more centrally by the state?

Like a civil servant, Lehikoinen does not take a direct stand on the question.

“Yes, of course this is always the big question. How do we ensure that basic cultural rights are realized in all parts of the country in both national languages, when the differences between municipalities are so big?”

In Finland, there has also been a specific desire to reduce the education administration and make the legislation on education more general in nature, says Lehikoinen.

In other words, municipalities and schools are wanted to be guided and monitored less. At the same time, however, the constitution requires that children receive equally good education in all parts of Finland.

“I'd say that's a tough question.”

Administration related to education has been drastically reduced in Finland, says Lehikoinen. Picture: Sami Kero / HS

Equality money is of course of great importance in production. Organizing education and training became the biggest tasks of municipalities, when social and healthcare services were transferred from municipalities to welfare areas a year ago.

There are very different municipalities in Finland: there are rural municipalities with a couple of thousand inhabitants, and then there is, for example, Helsinki with over half a million inhabitants.

Municipalities finance basic education with the state contributions they receive in practice and partly with their tax revenues. That is why it is difficult to estimate exactly how much basic education has been saved by the decisions of various governments in Finland.

It is at least known that during the recession of the 1990s, basic education suffered when state contributions were significantly cut. The level of financing in relation to gross domestic product has never returned to the pre-recession level.

Lehikoinen does not comment on how much more money basic education would have needed in the 21st century.

“But what I have hoped for and would still hope for is that there would be a long-term perspective on the financing of education.”

That is, some kind of parliamentary agreement on how much money will be put into education, regardless of the government?

“In Tki financing [tutkimus- kehitys- ja innovaatiotoiminta] the parliamentary agreement has been useful. When the costs in social and health services also inevitably rise, it would not happen that we end up saving on education. Scarcity in the public economy does not end with this election period.”