The Finnish school system

The Finnish school system is very different from the French one, and often considered one of the best school systems in the world. But let's talk about high school since it is our current level, and we studied for 2 weeks in Laanila high school.

During their high school years, students have 75 lessons, of which around fifty are compulsory (like a common core) to be done in 3 years, some students decide to do them in 4 years. The remaining 25 courses are courses that the students choose to study. The students decide their schedules and a year is divided into 5 periods, at the end of each period they have the “exam week” this exam week usually takes

a week and a half. A course is generally during 95 min with a 15 minute break between each course, and the meridian break is an hour. The cafeteria is free and open every day of the week during lessons (even on Wednesdays).

The class schedule takes place from 8:15 a.m. to 4 p.m. for the longest days, but as I said, it rather depends on each student’s timetable, the students start or end more or less late, or more or less early. Except on Wednesdays when the hours are 8:15 a.m. to 11:40 a.m., always depending on the schedule of each student.

As for vacations: they have summer vacations (2 months), autumn vacations (1 week), Christmas vacation (2 weeks), winter (1 week) and Easter holidays (a couple of days only).

For me, the Finnish school system is based on the autonomy and the self-discipline of students and this system has already proven its effectiveness, however, establishing a system like this in France now would not work because French students are not used to self-discipline. However, it could work if school autonomy were introduced gradually at the start of the school curriculum. As for the free cafeteria meals, I think this is a good point, because this is establishing equality in terms of food for everyone.

Aveline