How is the educational system in Finland?

Question

Narkotiki · Answer

It’s quite great, seeing as Finland is rated somewhere around top 5 worldwide according to multiple sources. Some of the things I usually hear about the Finnish education system are untrue, though, and our school isn’t as lax as some might think.

Here are some interesting points I can make up off the top of my head.
- Lunch is free until you start your secondary education (at 16 or so)
- All teachers (except substitutes) must have a master’s degree.
- We do have homework, just not a lot of it. I usually finished my homework at school between the day’s classes
- We do have tests at all stages of education, though unless you have any failed classes, these grades don’t matter at all before you’re age 14 or above
- We have around an hour or so of recess every day (unless the day is really short) with one in the morning at 10 am, one after lunch, and one at 1 pm
- When you start first grade at 7 years old, you’ll usually be looking at a bit over 20 hours a week of school, scaling up to 35-ish hours in the last years.

This is all just for grades 1-9 (ages 7-16). There’s too much variance after that to give a definitive answer.

joona · Answer

Just a nitpick, but secondary education offers free lunches by law, also :)

You start paying for the lunches at universities, where it's maybe 3.50€, if I remember correctly.

Lower education must be free for all by law (although the high school books can cost a bit, which is kinda weird, since it should be "free education").

Unlike in countries like the US, you don't pay a lot of money to get a tertiary degree, like a university degree. Instead you can (and will) get financial support from the government, so the government pays for you to get a degree. It's not much but it's enough for a student to get by.

In addition to that, you can get a student loan with almost non-existent interest rates.

Narkotiki · Answer

@joona 
Now that I try to recall it a bit harder, I realize you’re right about secondary education offering free lunches, I had a lapse in my memory on that part.

At my university and many others, the cost of lunch seems to hang around 2.60 €, give or take 10 cents.

Yeah, high school books can cost more than a hundred euros a year, depending on where you buy them from. If you’re fast enough, though, you might be able to borrow them from your high school’s library. A couple books might at times be available from normal libraries as well.

joona · Answer

Ah, maybe the price was more like 2.50€ than 3.50€ then.

I have three older siblings, so I was able to use some of their old high school books. Feeling like Ron Weasley. The national curriculum just seemed to be changing at that time, so sometimes I used a different book from the old curriculum. The teachers were always fine with it, anyway.

How is the educational system in Finland? See a translation

How is the educational system in Finland?