Did you know that Finland has long been recognized as having one of the best educational systems in the world? But the innovations didn’t just stop with the country letting its students enjoy more play time than school work because they have announced another radical plan: get rid of all school subjects!
According to Finnish school officials, they will be developing a school system wherein students will no longer attend classes in subjects such as geography, math, physics, history, and literature – subjects which are considered by many as something they don’t need for everyday life.
The general idea is that the students ought to choose for themselves which topic or phenomenon they want to study, bearing in mind their ambitions for the future and their capabilities. In this way, no student will have to pass through an entire course on physics or chemistry while all the time thinking to themselves “What do I need to know this for?”
Schools will now adapt with the times.
“There are schools that are teaching in the old-fashioned way which was of benefit in the beginning of the 1900s — but the needs are not the same, and we need something fit for the 21st century,” says Marjo Kyllonen, the head of the Department of Education in Helsinki.
But how will Finland do that?
Instead of taking individual courses and lessons in these subjects, students in Finland will go through them in an “interdisciplinary format”. This means that many subjects will be tackled in one class. Bright Side ME offers this example: “Second World War will be examined from the perspective of history, geography, and math.”
Students will also develop their communication skills, master the English language, and learn economics through the subject “Working in a Café”.
For now, the system will be introduced for senior students. In this system, classes will be more interactive and students will no longer stay behind their desks while teachers teach from the board because they will work in groups to discuss problems or even do research on their own.
The new school system encourages collective efforts in group work – and this would definitely encourage students to work with others, helping them develop skills that would surely be of great help in the ‘real world’ setting at their jobs in the future.
But the system will need time to be implemented as this will radically change the country’s education system; thus, full implementation is expected only by 2020.