WANTED: A Road Map for Primary School

Etla held a seminar “WANTED: A Road Map for Primary School” to critically discuss the state of Finnish primary school with the help of two well-known neighboring Nordic countries experts. The seminar was held on Thursday August 16 at G18 Seminar hall in Helsinki.

The two keynote speakers were Professor Magnus Henrekson from the Research Institute of Industrial Economics in Stockholm and Professor Sten Ludvigsen from the University of Oslo.

Magnus Henrekson’s book ”Kunskapssynen och pedagogiken. Varför skolan slutade leverera och hur det kan åtgärdas”, published last year, has created a lively debate concerning the level of primary school in Sweden and on the direction in which basic education should be developed.

The other keynote speaker in the seminar was Sten Ludvigsen who is a well-known educational theorist and the head of the “Ludvigsen Committee”. The committee has been appointed by the Norwegian Government to assess the subjects in primary and secondary education and training in terms of the requirements for competences in future working life and society.

The opening words of the seminar were given by Etla’s Managing Director Vesa Vihriälä, who stressed that the quality of education is also a guarantee of economic growth and the success of the society. Vihriälä also called for the introduction of international examples into the domestic school debate, in which Etla helped to do with the seminar.

LINK TO VIHRIÄLÄ’S SPEECH

After the presentations, the discussion continued with the moderation of EVA’s Director Matti Apunen, and which also included entrepreneur Saku Tuominen from HundrED, promoter of training innovations. Permanent Secretary Anita Lehikoinen was also originally invited to participate in the debate, but due to the budget negotiations, she was replaced by Mr Ilkka Turunen, the Ministerial Adviser from the Ministry of Education and Culture.

The seminar was part of the Occupational Restructuring Challenges Competencies’ project, which is coordinated by Etla and funded by the Finnish Academy’s Strategic Research Council.

HENREKSON’S SEMINAR PRESENTATION

EXTRA MATERIAL FROM HENREKSON AND WENNSTRÖM

LUDVIGSEN’S SEMINAR PRESENTATION

For the seminar, Etla also requested a comment about the Estonian school achievement and PISA results from Imbi Henno, who is the leading expert in the Estonian Ministry of Education. You can click on the link below to watch the two-minute interview.

WATCH THE VIDEO