Primary education starts in the same year when the child turns seven. Performance of primary school normally takes nine years. All Finnish children from 7 to 16 years of age are obliged to participate in education or the parents must be able to get other training managed in some other way.
Upper Secondary School education is general education and it is preparing for the matriculation examinations.
Vocational school is to train professional skills in the labor market skilled employees. The vocational education can also be performed by high school graduates, the degree is called dual qualification.
After the upper secondary school or vocational school some people go to university or to polytechnics.
In some countries, outside of the European Union, the school systems can be a lot different from the Finnish school system. For instants the school system in South Korea has a few major differences compared to ours. The Koreans use mental and physical punishment, if the students are not obeying the rules. The discipline is very strict. The punishments in our schools are mild compared to the Korean school's. In our comprehensive school you can get detention. In upper secondary school you can get expelled for a few days, or for a week, or two.
In Finland teachers are highly educated and they all have masters degree on the subject they want to teach in the future. The teachers are motivated to learn and to teach the students, what they already know. The biggest reason why there is so much teachers here, is the desire to give a student something important for the future. And because of this desire the teachers are quit proud of them selves. Appropriate to this topic would be an video clip: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DTg29LGp9fE&list=PLEE385BC5A0125995&index=1&feature=plpp_video
by army.arch