Why Finland's public schools are so successful
Sunday, August 18, 2013 | Categories: Episodes 8
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A school in Finland, where an egalitarian, low-stress model helps students to excel. Photo: Teemu Vehkaoja
The hand wringing over the state of public education in North America has produced a lot of reports, proposals and tensions between teachers, school boards, students, parents and governments. 
We hear that teachers have too much power, that governments don't adequately fund schools, that teachers need to be made accountable, that under-performing schools should have their funding cut back, that students need to be tested, that we need to focus on core subjects and spend less time on art and music.
Finland is consistently put at the very top of global educational rankings despite, or perhaps because of, taking a very different approach: teachers are highly trained and very well-paid, students aren't tested until their teens, there's very little homework, and there are no private schools.
Michael Enright speaks to Finland's education reform guru, Dr. Pasi Sahlberg, about how the country's egalitarian, low-stress model has helped Finnish students reach for the top.
This item originally aired in February.
