Policy Knowledge in the Finnish Curriculum Reform

• In Event: Policy knowledge networks and lesson drawing in an era of international comparison

Proposal

The Nordic countries have historically been a significant reference group for Finland in policy reforms. After Denmark (1973), and Finland and Sweden (1995) joined the European Union, this relation has supposedly changed. When analyzing the use of policy knowledge, recent Finnish research has not had a strong Nordic focus and instead explored how the EU’s and the OECD’s dominant discourses seem to set the agenda of global competition, and how Finland has followed in their slipstream with its education reforms (Rinne et al. 2004; Naumanen & Rinne 2008; Niukko 2006; Kauko & Varjo 2008). For instance, in relation to higher education, Kallo (2009, 357) describes how the OECD forms an epistemic community whose “power pervades academia and society and diffuses beyond democratic decision-making through various networks”.

In our presentation, we systematically analyse the use of policy knowledge in a recent, and partly contested reform of the new core curriculum. The National Core Curriculum is the main content steering instrument in Finnish comprehensive education policy and schools are legally bound to follow it. The Curriculum obligates the provider of education (in most cases municipalities) to include its central aims as part of its education. The providers of education and schools form their own curricula, but drawing on the National Core Curriculum.

After the centre-right coalition government internally disagreed on a white paper in 2010 (Siekkinen 2017), the new right-left coalition government started National Core Curriculum reform work in August 2012, which took effect on 22 December 2014. Since August 2016, grades 1-6 have followed the new curriculum and grades 7-9 start the implementation during 2017–2019. The new curriculum is built around “competences needed in society and working life” and it aims to change “the content of teaching, pedagogy and school practices” (Halinen et al. 2014). According to Uljens and Rajakaltio (2017) the new curriculum follows the competence-based idea and key competencies promoted by the OECD.

Our focus of analysis is a white paper produced by the ministry-assigned working group. The white paper, Future Basic Education (Opetus- ja kulttuuriministeriö 2012), identified the general national objectives and presented a proposal for renewed distribution of lesson hours, and suggested the necessary decree changes on the Government Statute on the National Education Objectives Referred to in the Basic Educational Act and the Distribution of Lesson Hours in Basic Education (Valtioneuvoston asetus 422/2012).

We analyse the citations in the green papers cited in the white paper to understand the use of policy knowledge base of the reform. Green papers include school performance evaluation reports, which suggest policy changes; policy guideline documents guiding the policymaking process; and school study reports, which highlight areas that need development, but do not suggest specific policy changes.
The analysis is on-going. We expect to shed light on whether or not the Nordic context is still a relevant reference for Finland, what type of policy knowledge the significant Core Curriculum reform drew on, and how this informs us on the education policymaking in Finland.

Authors

• Jaakko Kauko, University of Tampere, Finland

• Saija Volmari, University of Helsinki

• Juho Anturaniemi, University of Tampere

• Elina Kuparinen, University of Tampere

• Iris Santos, University of Tampere