Committee of Education, Culture and Sciene visits Finland

11 May 2011

From Monday 9 May until Friday 13 May, the Committee of Education, Culture and Science is paying a working visit to Finland.

From Monday 9 May until Friday 13 May, the Committee of Education, Culture and Science is paying a working visit to Finland. The Reason for this working visit is Finland’s top position in the internationally comparative Programme for International Student Assessment list (PISA). The list provides an overview of the OECD member countries and the performances of their educational systems.






School performances



The MPs want to be informed why the school system and the school performances in Finland show such positive results. The delegation is interested to know whether there is a link to the fact that teachers in Finland are highly appreciated. In Finland, teachers in secondary education are highly qualified; almost all teachers are academically schooled. 






Sparsely populated areas


Another topic is the education in sparsely populated areas. In some areas of the Netherlands, for example in Limburg (in the south-east of the Netherlands) and Northeast Groningen, schools are closing because of a shortage of students. MPs want to see how the Fins arranged education in the sparsely populated north of the country.






Delegation

• Bas Jan van Bochove (Chairman, CDA)
• Brigitte van de Burg (VVD)
• Metin Çelik (PvdA)
• Jack Biskop (CDA)
• Manja Smits (SP)
• Jesse Klaver (GroenLinks)