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
Finnish school system has always been the "normal" one for me; I have actually never thought that it is so different and respected from the other countries - Until now when we're doing this project work. It made me realize that Finnish schooling system is really good and admired, we should be really proud of it. But we're not living in a perfect utopia here, there are some disadvantages as well. Some students might be really disturbing and disrespectful in every single class and school they attend and like you said, they might be thrown out of the class or get detention and that's it, even if they continue doing it class after class.
VastaaPoistaFinns value education. The profession of teacher is respected, teachers are respected. I think being a teacher is calling that some people have since a little child.
Anna V.