The Ethos of Learning Case Finland

Lea Kuusilehto-Awale

Finland, a small, remote and unknown country became an attractor to educators across the world as soon as the first PISA student achievement assessments were published in 2000, and the Finns were equally amazed by the outcomes. The same goes for the assessments in 2003, 2006 and 2009. Hence Finland has participated in each of the PISA assessments arranged so far.

The purpose of this presentation is to reflect on the ethos of learning in the case of Finland, to make the basis for the above mentioned outcomes understandable, though naturally not transferable as such to another society. The focus will be on five issues, namely on the status of learning, teaching, teachers and principals, the teachers job description, teacher education in Finland, the systemic alignment in the ethos of learning, and on future challenges.

1 Status of learning, teaching, teachers and principalsInfluence of Lutheran religionThe status of education is high in Finnish society. On one hand, Finland is a nation of the word, on the other hand we are a practical and a pragmatic nation. We have been a reading nation for a long time, in fact since the 1600s when the Lutheran church began demanding literacy skills for us to marry in front of the eyes of God, the church providing also literacy teaching. This is where the high respect for learning has its roots. The Lutheran religion, adopted by the Swedish Empire which Finland was part of, advocated every individuals ability to read the Bible in the mother tongue without a mediator .

Building infrastructures in the 1800sThe 1800s were a century when several infrastructures for learning were constructed. Finland was blessed with farsighted educated Swedish speaking intelligentsia, who saw that the learning of the majority of the population should be provided for with their native language, Finnish. Politically, Finland then enjoyed a liberal administration as a Grand Duchy of Russia. Among the decisions taken at that time are e.g. the following innovations, which have since flourished and continue being highlights of Finnish education and learning till today. The first public libraries were established in 1848 and today this service remains available to every citizen at a minimal charge in every municipality, the municipality being the administrative entity responsible for providing the services. Teacher training as an organized activity was launched by establishing the first teacher training seminar in Jyvskyl in 1863 and passing the first primary school act of law to establish municipal (public) schools not only in towns but also in the rural areas. In the same decade the first secondary schools teaching in Finnish were established in order to educate civil servants to administer the country. In the field of the humanities the first novel was published in the native language, the National Theater was founded, the arts, both visual arts and music flourished. At the end of the century the first institutions of informal education were launched with the purpose of educating their members in citizenship skills, holding meetings, participating in building democratic activities. The same institutions serve the nation today with a much wider provision of skills training. The mission behind these activities was to build and form the national consciousness and identity with the distant objective that one day the nation would gain independence.Societal upheavalThe Finnish population reached the 100% literacy rate in about the year 1900. Literacy means an increase in an individuals capacity to find out about the world, to form informed opinions, to develop oneself, to engage in active citizenship, to dream of and find better opportunities. Literacy is a liberator of the mind, a boost to mental independence. The same phenomenon is explained and proved by extensive statistics by the French sociologists Courbage and Todd in their book Convergence of Civilizations (2005). They posit a powerful combination between a nation reaching the 100% literacy rate, a decrease in fertility and societal upheavals. The book applies the proof to the rise of fundamentalist Islam, positing that fundamentalist Islam and the current social upheavals are products of this societal development, not a proof of a conflict between Christianity and Islam, as advocated by Huntington , whose view was quickly spread across the globe by the avid media after 9/11. The two sociologists prove the model by extensive statistics from a wide range of countries, religions and societal patterns like monogamous and polygamous patterns across the globe. In the context of Finland, the upheaval stage was the civil war of early 1918 and the strained relations of the political right and left in the 1920s and 1930s, ending in the wars against the Soviet Union 1939-1944. To note is that equal and obligatory access to basic education was guaranteed by law as late as 1921.Money is not the motivatorAnyway, those who teach have always been considered the key to learning and are highly respected in society. Even today both the teaching profession and the principals profession are amongst the most highly respected ones in Finnish society. Financial reimbursement is often considered a trigger of both prestige and motivation to an employment. Yet, in the case of Finnish educators, their salary is only slightly above the OECD average. It guarantees a solid, decent income and there is no need for an educator to seek an extra second or third job to maintain his/her family. Also, teachers absenteeism from work is very low. Hence we must draw the conclusion that money is neither a factor of motivation nor does it enhance Finnish educators commitment to the profession.

Informal education avenue of opportunityThe role of not only formal education but also informal education is strong in society and in the family. As mentioned above, informal adult education was launched in the late 1800s by the workers movement and soon spread to the conservative movements as well, developing early into a strong avenue providing learning opportunities for every citizen irrespective of social class, prior educational background, age or any other socio-economic factor. Today the institutions of informal education are partly subsidized by the state. The number of enrollments to this education was over 2,25 million in 2009 and these institutions comprise adult evening secondary schools, liberal arts colleges, continuing education centers, open universities, summer universities etc. People study not only cognitive subjects, but arts, music, drama, sports, handicrafts etc. Also basic and secondary education can be completed by adults who have not had access to those earlier, usually due to their age or ethnic background. The age range of students is 15-95; additionally, so called basic education in the arts is arranged to children in basic education by the liberal arts colleges. This means that practically every family has a member enrolled or at the minimum there is a consciousness of this learning opportunity in every household. The information booklets of the liberal arts colleges are even mailed to every household each autumn prior to the term beginning.

High status of vocational educationAdditionally, the various tracks of secondary and tertiary education with their different objectives are acknowledged in educational policy, their implementation is developed, and they enjoy respect in society. Besides the traditional general academic education, vocational education enjoys a high status. After the second World War, when Finland had to pay heavy compensations to the winner, the Soviet Union, she had to reform her factories and metal industry plants to keep up with the production needs and the rebuilding of the country. A large number of well trained workforce was needed and consequently, vocational education was strongly being developed and resourced. The second strong stage of resourcing vocational education was launched in the 1990s, when a national network of close to 30 universities of applied sciences, also called polytechnics, were founded and the whole range of vocational schools were restructured both administratively and in terms of curriculum. Also an additional option of gaining a professional qualification via working life practice and taking a qualifications examination was launched. In the past few years secondary level vocational education has enjoyed a higher attractivity among the school leavers from basic education, than the traditional general secondary education. The roots of the change in respect and status go back to the long term effort of the state and society to resource and develop the vocational education and to raise its status.

Reproduction of socioeconomic patternYet, despite these good traditions and achievements, in all honesty we must confess that also our education system reproduces the socio-economic pattern where children from low income families attain a lower education. Especially in tertiary education in the past few years the trend where students with high income social backgrounds outnumber their peers from lower ones has again become noticeable.

Long term, sustainable education policiesEducation policy and implementation are amongst the top priorities of the government programs. Education policy and education reforms are constructed with political consensus and administered sustainably. In our system the ministry and central office civil servants are not changed after each election, nor is a new reform implemented after each election. This results in the fact that the life span of education reforms extends across a period of time that guarantees the feasibility of decent outcomes, i.e. an interest to the investment made.

Factors behind PISA resultsThe Finnish outcomes in the PISA assessments have been produced by means of the following essential characteristics, which are so fundamental to us that we were thoroughly astonished receiving the first results in 2000, and have remained equally so, receiving the successive results. We do not teach for national tests but we teach for students to learn. Of course we test our pupils learning every three or four weeks, but its purpose is to diagnose the progress and if it is not satisfactory, we resort to immediate measures. This early intervention has the objective to bring the students learning to the expected level, which results in very few pupils repeating the school year. Also, in PISA the inner school variance is below the OECD average, and variance between schools is the lowest in the world. On average well over 99% of children complete the 9-year basic education, due to the possibility of also a home school system and hospital schools. Basic education is compulsory but it can be conducted on various avenues, for which also the early intervention resources apply. Equality of educational opportunity and access is a top priority. The constitution guarantees free basic education for all, regardless of gender, ethnicity, health, religion, location, and socio-economic status.The price of basic education per capita is at the OECD average, and the number of hours taught per year is lower than the OECD average. The conclusion here is cost and resource effectiveness: We teach our children less, but they learn more. Our children begin school at age seven and currently over 98% go to the voluntary preschool for the six-year-olds, which was launched at the turn of the 2000s. As the number of Finnish women working full time is very high, the small children are taken care of in day care centres or in family care. This kind of early childhood education fosters the whole well being of the child, placing attention to care and play.

An interesting horizon opens when comparing the Finnish success in PISA between the Finnish and the Swedish schools in Finland (the country is bilingual) and between the other Nordic countries, all of which perceive as sharing similar values of equality and equity in society, provide their citizens with a welfare society, rank high in international assessments on transparency, absence of corruption, an innovative and entrepreneurial environment, and general wellbeing and happiness of their citizens. As table 1 shows, the Finnish schools in Finland excel in all the three areas. Table 1 Comparing Nordic countries in PISA 2009. Courtesy of Professor Jouni Vlijrvi, Finnish Centre for Educational Research.

The Finnish education system

The children start school at age seven. 98% of the six-year-olds attend the optional pre-school , which has now been available for over ten years. Prior to the pre-school, two thirds of children attend daycare centres due to the fact that both parents are in the workforce. Most small children below the age of three are taken care of in the home thanks to the maternity and paternity benefits. Both the daycare and the pre-school concentrate on caring for the child and learning through playing. One can say that in this regard the Finnish child has a long childhood to play. In the education reforms of the 1990s the state subsidized education system was made flexible, to allow change and combining education tracks and also re-entry to education. See Table 2. Table 2. The Finnish education system (state and municipal provision)

Basic education Basic education is a constitutional human and civil right and access is guaranteed to everybody, as described earlier. Basic education comprises grades 1-9 and is completely free of charge. The society provides free tuition, learning materials, cooked, nutritious school lunches, school transport, medical and dental care, careers counseling, psychological support. On grades 1-6 teaching is carried out by the class teachers, meaning that one teacher is in charge of teaching all the subject matters. From grade 7 onwards, teaching is conducted by subject teachers, who have a teacher education specialization in one to three subjects. As stated earlier, the completion rate of basic education is on average well over 99% of the age group. To note is that there is no national standardized testing at the end of grade 9 of basic education.

The purpose of the 1970s education reform was to increase the education level of the nation by ensuring equal access to education for all. In the first ten years after the reform the pupils were streamed or tracked to three ability groups in foreign language and maths. The result was that children from lower socioeconomic backgrounds and boys dropped into the lower tracks and consequently did not gain full access to secondary education and to follow, to tertiary education. The conclusion in education policy was to delete the tracking or streaming system, and to focus on providing quality teaching skills to teach mixed ability groups. The Masters degree as the qualification of the teaching profession was introduced in the 1980s. Secondary education

Secondary education of grades 10-12 offers four avenues. The first is the traditional academic general upper secondary/senior high school, the second is the vocational school, the third is to combine secondary general and vocational education for taking a double degree, and the fourth is to enroll in working life apprenticeship and through qualification examinations acquire a vocational degree certificate. In the past few years vocational education has attracted over 50% of basic education school leavers. As referred to earlier, raising the attractivity of and the respect for the vocational education has been a conscious effort to face a serious shortage of skilled workforce that could also be capable of being quickly retrained as contexts change rapidly in the modern world.For youngsters hesitant or incapable of making the choice for secondary education, there is an extra one-year option of taking a general 10th year class to better their grades, or a work place orientation year to familiarize with the requirements and characteristics of various work fields to be able to make the decision for their secondary level education. In fact, there is also a fifth track through the folk high schools to take a vocational education secondary degree. The folk high schools are partly subsidized by the state. Secondary general and the double degree of secondary education finish with the standardized national matriculation examination.

Tertiary educationTertiary education offers the university and the university of applied sciences (polytechnic) tracks. From each there is an access possibility to the other track. Tertiary education degrees are in two cycles as agreed in the Bologna process of the European Union: The Bachelors degree and the Masters degree.

Both state subsidized secondary and tertiary education are exempt of term fees. The secondary education students are provided the same study benefits as the basic education pupils except for their study materials.

Informal education

Additionally, besides the totally state subsidized system, there is a very strong informal education system covering the whole country, where the students pay moderate course fees and where there are other providers besides the state and the municipality. These education providers fill in the gaps of the formal education and also serve as tracks for further education and providers of recreation. For example, the Open University courses can lead to university degrees and the adult evening secondary schools and folk high schools provide basic, secondary and vocational education tracks for adults who due to their age group, ethnic background, health or any other reason may not have had access to formal education or wish to improve it. (Cf. p. 3)2 Teachers job descriptionAs is eminent from the discussion above, the teachers societal status is high. An important result of this is that the attractivity of the teaching profession is high. Approximately 10% of each age group apply for primary teacher education and only 10% of them are accepted. The applicants are very good secondary level graduates, from whom the most motivated and applicable are selected. The teacher qualification is the Masters degree for all school levels. The only exception is the option of a Bachelors Degree for kindergarden/day care centre teachers. In viewing the teachers job description, it is important to bear in mind the discourse on the purpose of education today. Is the purpose to ensure a nations economic competitiveness, to produce a homo economicus as the dominant discourse in the past three decades has been? Or is the purpose to foster and transfer Bildung from generation to generation, or is it to raise and rear the child? Or is it to educate the holistic trinity of the head, heart and hands as advocated by the father of Finnish primary education, Uno Cygnaeus? Or is it to inculcate values and ethical behaviors towards oneself, the fellow humans, the man-made and natural environments (Noddings, 2005)?

The Finnish teacher works amidst this dilemma, in the crosscurrent between the increasing demands for ensuring high cognitive skills and the need to foster the emotional and social well-being and development of the child. The primary school teachers, i.e. the class teachers have been educated to combine the ethos of both teaching and raising the child. Despite the rise of the economic competitiveness discourse, the ethos of the Finnish teacher has been and is very much on teaching, learning and raising the child to his/her full potential. We do not exult competition, competitiveness and ranking.The Finnish child is taught by the same class teacher through the primary school classes 1-6. From class 7 onwards the child is taught by subject teachers, who have specialized in the subject in question and whose focus also in training is more subject specific, the tradition being on emphasizing the acquisition of cognitive skills. Yet, since the 1980s and the 1990s education reforms the objective has been to teach with child-centered, collaborative, interactive, experimental and groupwork methods, engaging the child to participate actively in observation, finding questions and answers, creating solutions, knowledge and experiences, and to enhance the childs finding his/her potential, as defined in the National Core Currilum (NBE, 1994, 2004) .Challenge to teaching skills: mixed ability groupsOur children are taught and cared for and they learn in mixed ability groups through basic education grades 1 to 9 and prior to that in the daycare centres and in pre-schools. The 1970s education reform that guaranteed equal access to education for all is definitely the education policy reason behind our PISA success. The challenge to the teachers teaching skills and to the learning environment is radically different from the case of a socioeconomic match between the teachers and the pupils in schools that select or are allowed to select their pupils. The Finnish teacher and the Finnish teacher education continuously have to invest in developing versatile methodologies and empowering pedagogy to address the needs of different learners in the same group. Teacher education is built on research based learning, reflection, dialogue of theory and practice and engaging in life-long learning. Our committed, well educated teachers pride themselves in this approach. In the classroom work they may be assisted by teaching assistants and special education teachers, and also socio-psychological support is available in multiprofessional teams in the schools. Teacher autonomyThe teachers are responsible for and do engage in developing pedagogy and methodology in their school. The minimum of yearly mandatory further education is the three days per school year provided by the employer. They have the freedom to experiment their innovations and to choose the methods they find the most appropriate for any group of students they work with. The Finnish teacher is autonomous in his/her classroom. Educating to citizenshipAs developing active citizenship skills is one objective of school work, enhancing it is naturally every teachers duty. In practice this means involving the children to engage first in planning their own learning and work in school and learning through activities like projects, excursions and events. Through parent - school and school - community cooperation come the next steps and with the child growing up, the principles of how a democratic society functions are studied and experimented, e.g. by organizing shadow elections in schools at the time of municipal and parliamentary elections. The teacher and the school are also responsible for ensuring the childs safety in the school hours. Also, every civil servant working with children has the legal responsibility to report suspected violations on a childs well-being to the social welfare services.

Engaging in school based leadership and managementThe teachers job description has been challenged since the early 1990s by the opportunity and responsibility to participate in running the school on a broader scale. In Finland administration was decentralized in the 1990s by merging central governmental offices and diminishing the provincial administration. Decision making and implementation was brought from the national and provincial level to the local level by granting the municipalities a broad constitutional autonomy in providing the services that are their responsibility: education, social and healthcare and technical infrastructures being the biggest sectors. Thus, also in education decision making and implementation was brought to the local level and there also to the school level. Since then school-based management has been implemented in Finland, including the creation of school-based curricula. In addition to being responsible for teaching, the Finnish teacher has both the right and the duty to be involved in the curriculum work, in building the school vision, mission, the curriculum contents and the strategic planning for the implementation. The minimum participation rate is to attend the weekly and monthly school work planning sessions and meetings. Also, at the same time as the local curriculum design was launched almost 20 years ago, the inspectorate system was abolished and replaced by the mandatory self-evaluation of the schools. From this follows that the teachers are involved in designing and realizing the yearly self-evaluation objectives and implementation systems of the school. In the long run this has paved the way to increased collaboration and exchange of teaching practices and innovations between the teachers and to increased job satisfaction as posited by the research conducted by Mller and Hernandez (2010). These developments entail that the teaching profession extends from classroom teaching and management towards contributing to the creation of the school work at large and to school management and leadership. In school-based administration most of the planning and implementation work is in the school, which means an increase in the administrative workload. The work needs to be divided in order to be conducted efficiently and successfully. The answer is the move towards shared, distributed and collaborative leadership practices, involving the teachers to contribute to the leadership and management practices. 3 Teacher education is in universities

There are currently eleven teacher training departments in university faculties of education in Finland, spread throughout the country as regional access to also tertiary education has been prioritized in national policy making. The teacher education and research of the departments is supported and complemented by the teacher training schools, the function of which is to provide teaching for the basic and upper secondary education levels, to tutor teacher trainees and to conduct teaching experiments and research. This chapter illustrates the primary and subject teacher education guidelines at the University of Jyvskyl (Lindell, 2011; Teacher education curriculum, 2011). Additionally, the faculty trains also early childhood education, special education and sign language teachers.Primary teacher education

The Masters degree qualification in primary teacher education comprises 300 ECTS credit points. One ECTS credit equals 27 hours of full time work. The core content areas of the curriculum are teachers pedagogical studies including teaching practice, education as the major subject including research methods, school subject studies for primary school teachers, and minor subject studies including languages and ICT studies. The latter comprise school subject studies in disciplines taught in school and pedagogical studies. The allocation of ECTS per each content area is illustrated by table 3.Table 3. Allocation of ECTS per content area in primary teacher education

Teaching practiceTeaching practice is conducted through four successive modules and realized in the state owned teacher training schools. Also field schools are used. The practice begins with observing class dynamics and the work of the experienced training school lecturers and continues to planning teaching sessions smaller than a lesson first, then whole lessons and teaching them, and finishes with teachers responsibilities and professional ethics. The practice teaching is monitored by the peer teacher students, the teacher training school lecturer and to a smaller scale the teacher training college lecturer. After the teaching session or lesson the output is reflected on by all parties present in the event. The reflection deals with the interaction, knowledgeability, versatility of methods, empowering the pupils, enhancing an investigative approach and reflection, communicating and evaluating different points of view, time management, and alternative pathways to the ones now utilized conducting the lesson. The four successive modules are constructed as follows. Module 1 (4 ECTS with a duration of ca. 3 weeks) concentrates on observation and giving six brief teaching sessions. The objective is to gain a view into the teachers work, interaction in classroom and pupils as learners. Module 2 (6 ECTS with a duration of ca. 6 weeks) practises planning and implementing teaching and the assessment of outcomes. The teacher student teaches 26 lessons. In module 3 (8 ECTS ) the teacher student plans, implements and assesses extensive study modules, makes appropriate pedagogical choices, decides how to guide and support the different learning processes of different learners, and chooses the appropriate assessment methods. In teaching practice module 4 (8 ECTS) the teacher student gains an insight into the regulations, responsibilities and legislation pertaining to the teaching profession, parent-school and school-community cooperation, multi- and inter-professional interaction and professional ethics. The teaching practice totals 26 ECTS. Subject teacher educationLike primary teacher education, the subject teacher education comprises 300 ECTS of studies. The allocation of ECTS credits per different content areas are illustrated in table 4 below.Table 4. Allocation of ECTS per content area in subject teacher education

The content areas consist of the major subject (to be taught in school) studies including research methods, teachers pedagogical studies including teaching practice, co-subjects (minor subjects to be taught in school) academic studies, language and communication studies including ICT studies. The precondition for the teachers pedagogical studies is the Masters degree in the teaching subject(s), major and minor(s). The teacher student does 25 ECTS of basic studies in education, including 5 ECTS of teaching practice, and 35 ECTS of intermediate studies in education, including 15 ECTS of teaching practice. Teaching practice thus totals 20 ECTS.

Teaching practice As in primary teacher education, the practice comprises four modules. The first 5 ECTS module deals with instructed orientating practice, where the teacher students get acquainted with school, teachers work and classroom interaction, and reflect their own learning experiences on teaching. Each student does three teaching sessions. The second 5 ECTS module is instructed basic practice.The students observe the pupils as individual learners and group members, learning environments and different working methods, studying the aims and contents of the curriculum. They teach fourteen sessions in this module. The third, 7 ECTS module is advanced instructed practice. The teacher student practises the investigative approach, planning a teaching experiment based on theoretical starting points and which they teach during the course. They both plan, implement and assess in the 12 sessions they teach. The fourth, 3 ECTS module is adapted instructive practice. Now the students become acquainted with the culture of a field school. They examine the school as a learning organization, learn to plan activities, allocate resources and share the responsibilities in a work community, and acquire an insight into lifelong professional development. They teach six sessions in this module.The feedback of the teaching practice is given similar to that of primary teacher training practice: through joint sessions with peers, teacher training or field school lecturer(s) and also, to a smaller extent, the teacher training department lecturer.In sum, Finnish teacher education focuses on studies in education and the pedagogical studies and combining theory with practice. For subject teachers the major is the subject to be taught and pedagogical studies are a minor subject of 60 ECTS credits. 3 Systemic alignment of the ethos of learningAs we see it in Finland, a nations learning and raising a nations education level cannot take place by giving credit to one actor only, resourcing it and victimizing another, as has been the fashion in the so called Global Education Reform Movement (GERM) ignited by the neoliberalist economic, political, social and educational policies in the past 30 odd years, in the pursuit of silver bullets, quick fixes and instant gains for the few in societies. (Harvey, 2005) Finland has been very moderate and hesitant to follow the neoliberal fads (Rinne, Simola&Kivirauma, 2002; Sahlberg, 2007, 2009). For sustainable education outcomes to emerge, a systemic alignment in favor of resourcing education for all is necessary.

The favorable alignment begins with sustainable national education policy agreed on by the major political stakeholders for the benefit of the entire nation for a longer time span than one election period. Sustainable education policy does not launch a new education reform after each election, nor does it change the major civil servants in key positions, thus ensuring the continuity of reforms. This is because education is a field where sustainable outcomes are made in a long term implementation cycle, where infrastructures like the learning environments and the teacher, parent and community skills are built, maintained and constantly developed. (Caldwell&Spinks, 2008)Enhancing learning is a systemic challenge in society. It is a matter of the society at large, of education policy making and implementation, teacher education and school level realization from principal to and with the teacher and pupils, other staffs and the community, and of enhancing respect for learning in the society at large. In the example of case Finland, learning has succeeded when systemic alignment has been in place and no standardization of curricula and evaluation has been implemented in basic education. Instead, the best possible curricula doable in the local circumstances have been created and implemented, and resourcing has been focused on teachers, learning environments and the individual learners. The learning environments include the societal regard at large, enhanced by long term resourcing and development. The raising of the status of vocational education is an example to the point of the latter . (Sahlberg 2006, 2007, 2009)5 Future challenges in Finland

Unequal provision of education?To begin with, though Finland still ranked high in the PISA 2009 results and the track record from the years 2000-2009 is impressive, the results of 2009 raise serious concerns. The slight downward curve in the results is imminent. The PISA indicators show that the danger of inner-school and inter-school variation growing is real, which would erode the realization of the concept of equality in basic education seriously. So far, Finland had prided herself of being capable of providing high and equal outcomes in any corner of the country and in any school in the randomly selected PISA schools. If continued, this will create a serious societal imbalance and food for dissatisfaction in society. What has also alerted the nation, is the fact that the boys reading skills proved to be radically deteriorating, as opposed to the girls continuous high success. (Vlijrvi, 2011; cf. Simola, Rinne, Varjo, Pitknen &Kauko, 2009)Social sustainability

There are also other snakes in the paradise, though Finland has repeatedly been ranked one of happiest nations and best places to live along with the other Nordic countries. Finnish people are highly educated and the women are more educated than the men but working life hits hard. It proves to be increasingly demanding and both parents working full time are a challenge to the family. The divorce rate in the country is 50%. Additionally, the in-country migration was at its strongest in Finnish history in the 1990s, resulting in the fact that inter-generational support networks are not in place on the southern belt where two thirds of the population and most families with children live. Finland is also the most rapidly aging nation in Europe. (Statistics Finland, 2010)These phenomena show in school and challenge the capacities of the school as well as the school-parent cooperation. The teachers and other faculties are challenged by the need for caring for the whole child, not just imparting skills defined by the curriculum and learning concept. In our society both childrens and adults wellbeing is a social sustainability issue that has to be acknowledged and taken seriously in order for us to stay the good country we have built after World War II. Leadership in schools and societyAt the school level where school based decision making and management prevails, educating teachers is not the sufficient means to maintain and improve the quality of the schools. On one hand the teachers must not be left alone without support from the administration, on the other hand there should be systems in place where the teachers full capacities are engaged in the running of the school. School needs strong leadership and managerial capacity, run by a well educated leader with manysided skills, who is able to support and facilitate the teachers pedagogical teaching and leadership skills and to build collaborative leadership with the teachers and also the students. In the school that transforms the future, neither the teachers nor the other staffs must be left alone without the support of strong school leadership. They are essential transformers of the school entity, thus constantly modeling the students a living example of the enabling force of everyones participation in school. At its best the school is a practising arena of a democratic civil society. As regards qualifications, educational leadership qualifications should be brought in par with the subject teacher qualifications. Both pre-entry education and education while initiating the position, as well as further education should be a requirement and provided for. We also need to address the question, Whose leadership is important? In a systemic alignment for education reform and sustainable results, the answer is that everyones leadership matters: that of the policy makers, the education providers, the principals on the whole school and community level and the teachers in the classroom, school, community and the citizens level, and the citizens leadership at the community level. As for engaging the students into leadership on the classroom, school and community level in terms of giving credit to their capacities as an additional resource to the school, it is high time we ask , why it is hard for school to see students capacities as a resource, as an input to the school organizations learning? Cutting the students off in an interconnected society where data, information and knowledge is accessible on an ever increasing scale, to imagine that leadership through knowledge and capacity could sustain in the hands of the few, is an indefensible claim. Another challenge is for our schools to grow into network leadership between various educators, organizations and stakeholders, into leading and learning from both peers and differing capacities and resources.Redefinition of teaching, teachership, school and leadershipAnswering the above questions leads one to ask for a redefinition of teaching, teachership and school. Teaching must develop towards the facilitation of learning and acknowledging students skills as a resource to teachership. Teachership should be developed towards the pedagogical leadership of the classroom and the school, towards vision and mission building and the internal development of the learning community, and towards continuous updating of ones skills to be a learner model for the young. School as a learning environment has thin walls, penetrated by all other competitors in the delivery business of information, data, knowledge, experiences and entertainment, and it needs to redefine its standpoint as defender of a dignified human life and what that needs to be built upon. School must speak up for values and ethics, equal human and civil rights, sound personal and capacity growth, the eternal basis of a good human life. Leadership needs a redefinition as well. In standing up against disruptive elements to the growth to humanity and Bildung, the core of leadership is ethical leadership. Every educator must make the choice, whether to reproduce the current model of society OR transform the future. Change can only begin with the individual, with me. (Kuusilehto-Awale, 2011) Redefined leadership leads the individuals to learn as an organization, to build the vision and mission, to commit to them and build inner-organizational capacity for transforming the future. To sum up, school as the concept it is now will not be viable if we continue to keep it as a factory-like effort with tools deriving from the scientific management theory of management, applicable to machines but not so conducive with people. School as a learning environment is seriously challenged by new technologies enabling access to information, data, knowledge, experiences, entertainment and networking through which new knowledge, understanding and social environments are created.

Redefinition of the objective of educationIt is high time we returned to redefine the objective of education. In the current learning environments referred to above, as educators we have the duty to raise the question, How damaging will it be for the society if it allows its schools to hang on to mostly cognitive learning outcomes and neglect the emotional, social, spiritual, artistic, physical talents and factors that constitute a holistic human being as a part of the human community?

The answer to the above question is: Today the objective of education is to educate the whole person, in order for him/her to implement sustainability, and to understand its order. Prioritizing human, social, cultural, ecological and biological sustainability ensures economic sustainability and the viability of our interconnected world. This order calls for placing the learner and learning at large to the focus of the education effort, to be implemented in a systemic alignment that cuts through all layers of our societies.LIST OF REFERENCES

Caldwell, B.J.& Spinks, J.M. (2008). Raising the Stakes. Oxon/New York: Routledge.Courbage, Y.& Todd, E. (2005). Convergence of civilizations. A Transformation of Muslim Societies Around the World. New York: Columbia University Press.Harvey, D. (2005). A Brief History of Neoliberalism. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Kuusilehto-Awale (2011). Responsible Leadership with an Ethic of Care and Caring. A presentation at 20th ENIRDELM conference . http://www.enirdelm.org/index.php?sida=conference_presentationsLindell, A. (2011). Teacher education in Finland. Presentation given at Teacher Training Workshop, March 21-25, 2011, organized by the VPDF (Vietnam Peace and Development Foundation) in Hanoi, Vietnam.Mller, J. & Hernandez, F. (2010). On the geography of accountability: Comparative analysis of teachers experiences across seven European countries. Journal of Educational Change 11, 307-322.National Core Curriculum for Basic Education (1994, 2004). Helsinki: National Board of Education (NBE). Noddings, N. (2005). The Challenge to Care. An Alternative Approach to Education. 2nd ed. New York: Teachers College Press.Sahlberg, P. (2006). Education reform for raising economic competitiveness. Journal of Educational Change, 7(4), 259-287. Sahlberg, P. (2007). Education policies for raising student learning: The Finnish approach. Journal of Education Policy, 22(2), 147-171. Sahlberg, P. (2009). Educational Change in Finland. In Hargreaves, A., Fullan, M., Lieberman A. & Hopkins, D. (Eds.). International Handbook of Educational Change. Kluwer Academic Publishers. Simola, H, Rinne, R. & Kivirauma, J. (2002). Abdication of the Education State or Just Shifting Responsibilities? The appearance of a new system of reason in constructing educational governance and social exclusion/inclusion n Finland. Scandinavian Journal of Educational Research, Vol. 46, No. 3, 2002, 247-263.Simola, H., Rinne, R., Varjo, J.,Pitknen, H. & Kauko, J. (2009). Quality assurance and evaluation (QAE) in Finnish compulsory schooling: a national model or just unintended effects of radical decentralization? Journal of Education Policy Vol. 24, No. 2, March 2009, 163178. Statistics Finland. (2010). http://www.stat.fi. Teacher education curriculum. University of Jyvskyl. (2011). https://www.jyu.fi/edu/laitokset/okl/en/curriculum/curriculum%20pdf/viewVlijrvi, J. (2011). What PISA 2009 tells us. Lecture at the Institute of Educational Leadership,

University of Jyvskyl.

1

Primary Teacher Education (300 ECTS)

1 ECTS = 27 hrs full time work

Bachelors Degree (180)

Masters Degree(120

300 ECTS

Teachers pedagogical studies including teaching practice

25

12

35

16

60

28

Studies in education including research methods

35 (including BA thesis)

45 (including MA thesis)

80

School subject studies for primary school teachers

60

60

Minor subject studiesand language studies incl. ICT

2535

0-355-40

max60max75

22

Subject Teacher Education (300 ECTS)

1 ECTS = 27 hrs full time work

Bachelors Degree (180)

Masters Degree(120)

300 ECTS

Major subject studiesResearch methods

60 (including BA thesis)

60-90 (including MA thesis)

120-150

Teachers pedagogical studies including teaching practice

25-30

5

30-35

15

60

Co-subjects academic studies

25-60

0-30

25-90

Language and communication studies, incl. ICT

35-40

0-30

35-70