I never heard that our children would have their first examination from 14 years. It is simply not true. We study hard in Finland from the age of 7 years.
I have been to school in Finland from the year 7 till my PhD. Some years I spent in school in Stockholm and discovered that people there did not know their own mother tongue. Your mother tonge is the base for the learning. We in Finland have to know both Swedish and Finnish. These two languages are very very different with separate logic. The success is that we are very disciplined compared to Swedish students. We usually also have to put additional work on learning the other extremely different language. Not seldom we had to learn it even during the summer months.
Our parents paid for our schools and we were taught that this is a very big gift for us to be able to go to school. Not all of their generation had the privileged to go to school. We had years of war (1939-1945), we lost a lot of people. Every child born thereafter was most precious and should be educated. Finland is also - to my knowledge- the only country that prepares a fully equipped crib for all expecting mothers in order to give the newborn a good start in life. Finland is or at least has been a more religious country. 'Thou shall teach thy children' it says in the Bible. We were a poorer nation than Sweden and we compensated with education. We have good and ambitious teachers, who learn them selves throughout their lives. In Sweden students at the university study only 45 min pro hour, we study 90 min pro hour in Finland. Appreciation of being able to study and hard daily work pay off in Finland as in other countries.
I am very interested in studying the keys to the success of the educational model in Finlanadia and you have given me very important reasons. What culture is education and training of teachers. Thanks for your opinions.
I read that you also study Spanish as a second language. Isit true?
I have another question about your educational sisten. Do they have educational counselors in schools? How is the guidance and counseling system in the schools in your country?
I had 7 hours latin pro week in Stockholm, French, English, German, i studied Spanish only for 3 mo. In Finland, My son has studied German and English, Swedish and Finnish, and the other son Russia and English, Swedish and Finnish. I suppose you can study Spanish if you want to here too. Finland belonged to Sweden for 600 years till 1809. Then it was a part of Russia and 1917 we were independent. We are soon celebrating 100 years of independence.