Schools in Finland will no longer teach 'subjects' | EDUcation CHANGE | Teaching by Topic
For years, Finland has been the by-word for a successful education system, perched at the top of international league tables for literacy and numeracy. Pasi Silander, the city’s development manager, explained: “What we need now is a different kind of education to prepare people for working life. “Young people use quite advanced computers. In the past the banks had lots of bank clerks totting up figures but now that has totally changed. “We therefore have to make the changes in education that are necessary for industry and modern society.” Which makes it all the more remarkable that Finland is about to embark on one of the most radical education reform programmes ever undertaken by a nation state – scrapping traditional “teaching by subject” in favour of “teaching by topic”. Subject-specific lessons – an hour of history in the morning, an hour of geography in the afternoon – are already being phased out for 16-year-olds in the city’s