Beyond PISA: The Real Secret to Finland’s Success That No One Talks About
There is no shortage of headlines citing Finland as being the best education system in the world, so I was incredibly excited and curious to visit as part of our Global Executive EdD program at the University of Southern California. Through the program we visit different countries around the globe to learn about their education systems and the context within which they operate — what’s working and what’s not working and how can we learn from the work others are doing to apply to our own practice.
As part of our visit we had the opportunity to meet with non profits, start ups, primary and secondary schools, universities, government officials and tour a number of different sites. Prior to going into Finland if there were three aspects of their education system that had been highly popularized that I would have said were what I understood to be reasons for their success it would have been 1) play 2) their teacher education program 3) the autonomy everyone is given to do their work, be it faculty or students. And of course how can we forget the emphasis placed on their PISA scores.
While those aspects are strong elements that lend to their success, my experience has led me to believe that everything mentioned above are by products of a system that has a culture where people do not separate challenges into buckets such as political problems, economic problems or education problems. While the PISA results are expected to fall, where they continue to excel, rank highly and place their focus are in the areas of happiness (#1 in the world, with the happiest city in the world as well), social justice (#3 in the EU) and quality of life (#6).
So what is the secret to Finland’s success? The answer lies in the outcomes they choose to focus on. While the rest of the world highlights their PISA scores, the Finnish take little pride in this, rather they pride themselves on ranking high in the areas of social justice, quality of life and above all happiness. Every presentation highlighted these on a slide, not one highlighted PISA scores. As a result:
for the Finnish every problem, every challenge is framed as a human question, not a business question. To solve for it as you will often hear them say, “we do whatever it takes.
Framing challenges not as business questions but human questions allows their society to continue to grow and thrive, and the individuals within it the motivation to work in environments that bring them joy. Furthermore in solving challenges they are given tremendous autonomy and trust to do what is needed in the best interests of the people they serve. Framing challenges through the lens of human questions allows the Finns to lead and live with purpose — which could quite likely be a reason for why they are cited as the happiest country in the world, despite having the least amount of sunlight. For the Finns the light comes from within. That is the secret to their educational success, their nations success and the people’s happiness. While they may be lacking in natural resources such as oil, gas and sunlight, they believe their greatest natural resource is their people — the world’s best educated population who believe in a fair society where solutions are created for the many versus the few.
Ultimately the Finns embody one of the greatest lessons I’ve learned — that cultures of innovation begin with a culture of empathy.
The Finns look at quantitative data but for the sake of iteration to learn and improve their practices. They take the time to speak with stakeholders and gather the qualitative data they need to bring context to the challenge they are solving for. Instead of focusing on the cost of a program or the logistics they focus on what could be at stake if they don’t take action and invest in solving challenges. Nowhere is this more evident than in how they are currently working through the challenge of an increased number of immigrants — refugees, asylum seekers and many others (a topic that will require its own blog post).
The only natural way to ensure that everyone is able to contribute to finding and solving problems and embracing opportunities is to ensure that everyone has access to a high quality and equitable education. In Finnish Lessons 2.0, Pasi Sahlberg calls this, “The Big Finnish Dream,” established in 1963 when the Finnish government decided to choose public education as their best chance to regain economic prosperity after being destroyed by a series of wars.
For the Finns the key to solving their human problems is by ensuring that education is a basic human right.
While this is not a novel belief unique to Finland, what is novel is the authenticity with which this vision is carried out. 60 years later education as a basic human right and a gateway to economic prosperity is still a value that runs deeply in Finnish society.
In all of my travels across the globe never have I come across a society where the core values are felt, seen and heard in every conversation, in every answer to a question, in every presentation, in every individual and seen and felt as you walk the city, the hallways of a school or chat with a taxi driver. Over the next few weeks I’ll be reflecting on each of the experiences at the different places we visited and people we spoke to and sharing here at AskMsQ.com. If you want to see more video stories of my time in Finland, I invite you to join me on Instagram @AskMsQ and visit me at www.askmsq.com.
In my next article I’ll share our first site visit to HundrED, the work they are doing and why they believe sharing stories is the way to scale innovative practices across the globe.
How do you frame questions about the challenges in your organization that you are trying to solve for? Write down the top three challenges you are currently working on, or that your organization has asked you to focus on and examine them — are they framed as business questions or human questions? Looking for a place to start? The Design Thinking framework helps do exactly this and is the topic of my dissertation. Framing challenges as human questions allows us to put people at the center of what drives the work we do and the experiences and products we design.
