Wednesday, May 22, 2013

Culture versus Education System (Part 2 - Finland Phenomenon)

FINLAND PHENOMENON

The other country that I will discuss as a comparation to Taiwan is Finland. Maybe some questions start to come up on this part. Why should compare Taiwan, a small East-Asian country, to Finland, the 7th largest country in Europe which geographically very close to the north pole?

The Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA) is a worldwide study by Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) in member and non-member nation of 15-year-old students performance on mathematic, science, and reading. The programme starts in 2000 and repeated every three years. Since it starts, Finland consistently secure it's position in the list of top performer countries and Taiwan rapidly catch-up since 2006, though both have their own strengh. Based on 2006 and 2009  PISA result, Taiwan most excel (gain 1st rank in 2006) and overpower Finland in mathematic, while Finland most excel (gain 1st rank in 2006) and overpower Taiwan in science. As for reading subject, Finland consistently score higher, leaving Taiwan behind.

Before the discussion of score and rank going too far, I must put it clear beforehand that actually I don't see a successful education system is worth assessed only by any series of limited subject test, include PISA. Successful education system must enable it's participant to contribute to the real society such as, but not limited to, economic growth & technology development in Taiwan case. Those contributions must be able to seen from the ability of a society, or a country in a wider scope, to be highly independent, stand-alone, rely on it's own resources to face the world challenges. It could be in a form of economic power, technological advancement, sport achievement, cultural heritage, etc or a combination of all those aspects depends on the country strategy to develop a highly proud nation. High international test score and university rank without real impact to the society is only a proof of disintegrated education strategy imposed by the ruling party, or government.

The reason why PISA result used to explain Finland phenomenon is because the international sudden attention toward it's education system after the very first PISA result in 2000 successfully placed Finland in top five among all three subjects, 4th in mathematic, 3rd in science, and 1st in reading. However, I will not exaggerately consider this fact as the greatest achievement since actually those PISA top performer list from year to year still also significantly dominated by Asian country such as Japan, South-Korea, China, Hong Kong, Macao, Taiwan, and Singapore. An interesting pattern shows here that from seven PISA top performer countries from Asia, six of them are East-Asian countries where the Confucian teaching is widely spread and adopted. Based on June 2012 data, Singapore major population is Chinese with percentage of 74.2%. With the widely known fact on how most of chinese society always put an effort to hold on their cultural values despite of where they live, I believe at least 74.2% of Singaporean is an confucianism aware society.

Then, besides of high PISA result achievement, what's another interesting fact from Finland? Here is the list:
  1. Finland as the 16th freest economy in the world (7th in Europe) based in Economic Freedom Score 2013 which is derived from four main variable, Rule of Law, Limited Government, Regulatory Efficiency, and Open Market.
  2. Finland rank 11th for Ease Doing Business rating 2013.
  3. Finland is the 1st in the 2013 Network Readiness Index (NRI) based on World Economic Forum (WEF). The index measures the capacity of different economies to leverage ICT (Information and Communication Technology) for growth and well-being.
  4. The international rating agency, Fitch Ratings, has affirmed the long-term credit rating AAA for Finland, with a stable outlook.
  5. Finland top university, University of Helsinki, rank 91th based on The Times Higher Education World University Ranking 2012-2013.
  6. Notable companies in Finland includes Nokia, the former market leader in mobile phone, and Rovio Mobile with it's widely popular games Angry Bird.
  7. The inventor of Linux, Linus Torvalds, is a Finnish.
Historically from 1100-1200, Finland land was incorporated by Sweden and then, Russian. War and conflict (we call it Russo-Swedish conflict) due to both territory and culture clash keep occurs in the region until 19th century when feeling of nationalism began to emerge throughout Europe, include Finland. One famous quote as an expression of Finnish identity by Adolf Ivar Arwidsson (1791-1858), Finnish political journalist, writer, and historian, is 'Swedes we are not (no longer), Russians we do not want to become, let us therefore be (become) Finns.' The growth of national identity & culture feeling has lead Finland to declare it's independence in 1917. Finland once faced short period civil war (January-May 1918) after it's independence. The civil war occur between white guards (anti-socialist who continuously seek full independency from Soviet Union influence) and red guards (socialist who gradually view Soviet Union as an example to follow) and ended with white guards victory. Finland manage to survive World War II and maintain it's independent status which is, unlike Taiwan, fully acknowledged by international community.

The most well-known characteristic of Finnish nowadays is that they always put considerable weight on their words. They pick words carefully to express their feelings & opinions toward the others. They don't value small talk just to open or keep an ongoing conversation. A silence in the middle of a conversation is considered better than a small meaningless talk. Silence is also part of a conversation and they will not feel awkward about it. We can't say a 'just to say' promise such as, "We must have a dinner together sometimes," without really intend to do it. They will take it seriously and wait for your dinner invitation to come. However, don't misunderstand Finnish as an extremely serious people due to this characteristic. In fact, they are just a fun community, as we can see from their widely embraced sauna culture, who highly value accountability and honesty in their words. For Finnish, learning to bathe in a sauna comes as naturally as learning to speak. Finnish also embrace extreme modesty in their daily life. They will not boast their own achievement and sometimes they even will never mention it. Being realist, Finnish doesn't expect foreigners to  know a lot about their country. They will be pleased if a visitor is familiar with at least some of the milestones of Finnish history, culture, sports achievement, etc. They are aware that Nokia is often mistakenly thought to be a Japanese company and this misconception is viewed forgivingly but with pity.

(To be continued)

Source:
http://pisa.nutn.edu.tw/link_rank_en.htm
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Demographics_of_Singapore
http://www.investinfinland.fi/articles/news/finnish-economy-and-business-environment/fitch-affirms-finlands-aaa-credit-rating/88-915
http://www.investinfinland.fi/articles/news/finnish-economy-and-business-environment/finland-tops-networked-readiness-index/88-902
http://finland.fi/Public/default.aspx?contentid=160036
http://finland.fi/Public/default.aspx?contentid=160064&nodeid=41800



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