That’s right, while the average US 5th grader has 50 minutes of homework per day, Finnish students rarely have to do homework until their teens and even then they only get about half an hour of homework every day.
However, their high school graduation rate is at 93% compared to 78% in Canada and 75% in the US. Additionally, 2 in 3 students go to college; the highest rate in Europe. But don’t think this is because of low standards in the country.
Their international test scores dominate; Finland’s mean scores for the Program for International Student Assessment in 2006 was the highest in the world.
The reason for this is that students get plenty of teacher interaction. The student to teacher ratio is 1:12 when compared to New York’s student to teacher ratio which is about 1:24. Teachers in Finland all have a Master’s Degree fully subsidized by the state and only the top 10% of graduates are accepted into teaching programs.
Additionally, teachers are not treated like high-end baby sitters; they are as esteemed as doctors or lawyers. It seems like kids in Finland actually get to be kids, and having good grades and having fun are not mutually exclusive like they are in many other parts of the world.