CHENNAI: With merely 20 hours a week and 190 days a year, Finnish schools seldom burden their kids with homework – something that most schools in India do; and not to mention the nightmarish monthly assessments. Finnish children, it is said are spared of any standardised tests. And TN witnessed strong protests against Neet.
Perhaps, when School Education Minister K. A. Sengittaiyan returns from Finland, he would suggest ways and means to further reform the education system in Tamil Nadu. The Minister who is known for his proactive measures, will spend a week in Finland to learn a few lessons on improving the education system back home. He would leave on Aug. 28.
The Finnish model of education had even caught the attention of Rashtriya Swayamsewak Sangh (RSS) chief Mohan Bhagwat. He hailed the education system of Finland as the best in the world, and asked India to take a cue from it. It appears that Mr. Sengottaiyan has taken the lead and acted faster than ally BJP could in undertaking the visit.
“Just the way they have values of their country in their education system, we should have Indian values in our education system,” Mr. Bhagwat said at Gyanotsav, an event organised by the RSS-affiliated Shiksha Sanskriti Utthan Nyas, in the national capital.
In most Indian schools, kids spend 30-33 hours per week on average in schools and schooling begins at the age of 3. However, in Finland kids begin formal schooling at the age of 6, spending the next nine years in a single-structure system - there are no separate primary, secondary or higher secondary sections.
