Visiting Finland is going to be an interesting prospect, top of the international school testing league tables, no Ofsted, no school uniforms, learning by discovery, no streaming and saunas in every room.
We change planes in Helsinki and mercifully there aren't any delays. At Oulu our hosts are waiting for us with two little signs 'Knowsley TIPD' and we're whisked away in taxis to the Apollo Best Western, it's 1 a.m. local time (Finland is two hours ahead) but spirits are lifted when we discover... a sauna in every room.
Morning time and I'm looking out over grey skies. Oulu is the sixth largest city in Finland, population 130,000. The average temperature in July is 17 degrees centigrade and minus 9.6 in the winter. Today it's mild, only 5 degrees. Oulu was the tar capital of Finland, but like the rest of the country has moved on to high tech with an important Nokia factory in the city.
Breakfast TV and there's a 15 minute slot featuring a charming couple roaming around a pine forest examining the fungi wearing the kind of red duster hats that Michael Crawford modelled in 'Some Mothers Do 'Ave 'Em'. It certainly makes a change from GMTV and the sort of celebrity car crash interviews - Kerry Katona slurring her words on the sofa. Yeah, why bother to study when you can get your 10 minutes of fame.
Once again the taxi is bang on time and we are whisked away to Oulu University to meet their international organiser Jani Haapakoski. While we are waiting outside he tells us that saunas are a Finnish invention and are part of their heritage, the pioneers build the saunas first and then started on the log cabins, with an average of minus nine they wouldn't have got me out of the sauna.
Finland is famous for the Programme for International Assessment Tests (PISA), a sample of fifteen year olds were tested in reading, writing, science and maths in 2000, 2003 and 2006. At the last count 57 countries were involved in the programme. To add to the confusion there are also TIMMS and PIRLS which sometimes completely contradict PISA. Still that's testing for you and some American company is probably making a fortune out of it.
Finland is regularly ranked first or second and in 2006 was second in maths, first in science and second in reading. Just for the record America didn't get into the top twenty in anything, maybe they were just spending their money on the company that did all the testing.
Jani seems diffident almost embarrassed about the PISA results, it's no big deal really. I'm sure if this was America there would be giant flashing neon signs outside every school, 'Top of the World In Testing'.
Finland is one of the wealthiest countries in the world, average income $36,000. it's also very homogeneous 95% Finnish and 5% Swedish - they have their own schools and political party the Swedish People's Party.
Jani puts on a PowerPoint to explain all the complexities behind Finland's incredible success story in education. The country has 20 universities and 23 polytechnics, they have record numbers in tertiary education partly because there are no tuition fees.
All trainee teachers stay in university for five years and are educated to Masters level. Teaching is a very popular profession, Oulu is the second most requested venue for training and had 3,000 applicants for their 20 course vacancies. In Finnish culture teaching is highly valued and well-respected.
Pre-school is for children up to the age of seven and the emphasis is on play and socialisation. Many of them transfer to the comprehensives unable to read or write, but incredible as it may seem there isn't any panic, no headlines in the press about 'only 40% of five year olds can write their name' and they don't test the poor dears to death. In fact a feature of the Finnish system is the total lack of formal testing, only when you get to 18 with the university matriculation test are there any national assessment exams.
Comprehensive schooling is from age 7 to 15 and then children move into either academic or vocational upper secondaries. Despite having open enrolment the vast majority of children attend their local comprehensive and there is very little difference between results in different schools.
As the meeting moves on we tell Jani about the national tests at 7,11 and 14 (OK after that American company lost most of the results they've abandoned the last one), league tables and the punitive inspection regime where schools can be publicly identified as 'failing'. Jani looks a bit confused this seems to be some kind of scary alien planet to him. In Finland they pretty much just trust the teachers to get on with it, 'we've selected the best people, they are well trained'... er this all seems a bit too easy. In fact Jani explains that part of the Finnish secret is 'less is more'.
The figures from the Organisation for Economic Cooperationa and Development (OECD) seem to confirm the point - in primary schools Finland spends $5,557 per pupil, OECD average $6,252; experienced teachers earn $35,798, OECD average $37,832 and pupils have less teaching time 9-11 year olds 640 hours in Finland, OECD average 810 hours.
So there it is, really no big secret - a cultural tradition that teaching is a valued profession, recruit the best and leave them to get on with it. Either that or it's something to do with all that time they spend in the sauna.
In the afternoon we get time to walk round Oulu, I make for the Lutheran Cathedral, inside it's very sparse and austere. The Lutherans didn't believe in any adornments or 'graven images' they wanted to communicate with their God directly. In Holland when they took over the Catholic churches there was 'the iconoclastic fury' and all the statues and works of art were consigned to the flames.
There's an interesting article by Madeleine Bunting from 'The Guardian' in August 2008 she quotes from a book about Sweden by Andrew Brown called 'Fishing in Utopia'. The welfare state has been eroded over the last 25 years, their society was born from Calvinist protestantism and the intense interdependence of small rural communities. There's also the concept of Jantelagen the egalitarian conformity which forbids anyone to feel superior to their neighbours. Consumerism is a direct challenge to all of this, credit cards were only allowed in the 1990s. The Nordic model struggles to cope with cultural diversity, in Finland a far right anti immigration party has won record votes in the recent elections.
Sweden has introduced sixth forms run by for-profit private companies, already there are 'popular' schools where middle-class parents transport their children for long distances to attend and the 'sink' schools on the wrong side of the tracks. Will the Finnish schools be able to survive in their current state?
Meanwhile, I'm off for a well-deserved sauna.
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