Once I read an article about the Finnish education system one of the world’s best, if not the best, as evidenced by their consistent success in the PISA (The Programme for International Student Assessment) survey. Though it’s comprehensive school demographic that takes part in this, it nonetheless got me curious.
And I am not alone. “Finland’s high scores in the PISA studies conducted by the OECD on the scholastic skills of 15-year-olds have led to a stream of foreign education professionals travelling to Finland to learn about Finnish special education, teachers’ training, and the school system in general,” says Helsingin Sanomat, the biggest subscription newspaper in Finland.
One reason for Finland’s success is competency of their teachers. As my background concerns education, I looked for graduate programs offered by Finnish universities and found several interesting ones. This was back in 2007.
The interesting development in this goal is that I did eventually go to Finland but the purpose was not to study but to teach. I took part in an education internship for 6 months, which involved teaching English to high school kids. I did it from October 2008 to March 2009.
Now I am not sure if that qualifies as an accomplishment of this goal or not.
