How Finland has engaged in global education development?

• In Event: Roundtable Session (Tuesday I)
  In Refereed Round-Table Session: Global-Local Tensions of Globalized Education

Proposal

Finnish education has been considered a global benchmark since the 2000 PISA rankings. This reputation became an opportunity for Finnish policymakers and entrepreneurs through processes of transnational education, development aid, and education export to countries that are eager to learn the ‘miracle’ (Simola 2005) of Finnish education. This research investigates Finland’s role in education policy transfer through its collaboration in OECD’s initiatives towards global education development.
Much is known about the Finnish education as a benchmark, the reasons behind Finland’s education success (e.g. Välijärvi et al., 2002, 2007; Simola, 2005; Sahlberg, 2007, 2011), how different countries use Finland as a reference to their own education systems (e.g. Takayama et al. 2013), about the phenomenon of Finnish education export (e.g. Cai et al. 2012; Kantola & Kettunen 2012; Schatz 2015; Schatz 2016; Schatz et al. 2017), and how OECD has influenced Finnish education developments (e.g. Rautalin, 2013; Rinne et al. 2004). However, despite the growing number of publications about Finnish education and its connections to international actors, studies about the role of Finland as a global player in education policy transfer are still under-examined.
Education policy transfer is not a new phenomenon. The Jesuit priests, for instance, disseminated European education across the Portuguese and Spanish colonies worldwide around 500 years ago. Even before that, knowledge was transferred within Ancient Greece, the Vedic civilization, the Roman Empire, the Chinese dynasties, and the American pre-hispanic civilizations, to name a few. What is significant about recent education transfers, though, is their business-orientation. The neoliberal shift of education governance (Ozga 2009) towards a managerial regime increased global education competition whereby education is considered a valuable asset, and therefore, an export product. In this context, the ones who possess a great volume of such asset and whose education system become internationally successful, such as Finland, turn to be important players in global education debates.
Geographically and geopolitically, Finland has always been a border country between the east and the west (Simola 2005). Finland's climate and soils make food production particularly challenging. Trees are the most important natural resource in this relatively small country which has the 42nd higher GDP among 188 countries (WB, 2018). The late process of industrialization has not pointed out Finland’s aspiration to become a world leader, but the fast path of the transition from an agricultural to an industrial society and the socio-historical developments before, during and after that contributed to build and shape the contemporary Finnish welfare state. Finland is now one of the least corrupt countries in the world (Corruption Perception Index 2017, Transparency International), one of the most innovative countries (Global Competitiveness Report 2017-2018, World Economic Forum), the country with most political and civil freedom (Freedom in the World 2018, Freedom House), and the happiest nation in the world (World Happiness Report 2018). Despite being well-known for its education system since the publication of PISA 2000 results, Finland started exporting education officially in 2008 (Schatz et al. 2017). Education export has been identified as one of the Finnish government’s key export programs, whose turnover reached 260 million euros in 2014, with increasing targets for the following years (OPH 2017).
OECD, in turn, was founded in 1961 to promote economic development. It had an important role in establishing the ‘comparative turn’ in politics and became one of the ‘most powerful agents of transnational education governance’ (Grek 2009). The impact of the OECD on education is largely due to PISA studies. PISA has influenced education policy in all 30 OECD member countries as well as a growing number of OECD partner countries. The key features of PISA, according to OECD (2010), include its policy orientation; contextualization, by examining the quality of learning outcomes; geographical breadth (more than 70 countries participated in PISA 2015); and regularity, which enables countries to monitor their progress. OECD remains the most important international educational policy reference for Finland and other industrialized countries (Niukko 2006).
OECD is governed by a council, which counts with one representative of each of the 36 member-countries and a representative of the European Commission, and about 250 specialized committees or boards to foster ideas, assess the progress, and review specific policy areas, including four major expert groups in education. As an OECD member, Finland participates in most of these major groups and their subsidiary bodies.
Our research will explore the dynamics (see Simola et al. 2017) of policy transfer with regards to the processes of global education development to observe the flows, communications, networks and connections as well as frictions (see Tsing 2005) between Finland and OECD. We will analyze documents from Finnish education organizations (e.g. Finnish National Agency for Education, Ministry of Education) and their connections to economic and foreign affairs documents, and from the OECD. In addition, we will also analyze the discursive formations (see Foucault 1989) among the Finnish stakeholders who are involved in global education development initiatives in OECD committees. We will conduct interviews focusing on the actors’ concrete involvement, their roles and interactions with OECD and other countries in the processes of education policy transfer. We will analyze both documents and interviews following a critical discourse analysis approach considering the discourses as ‘part of a larger whole, which are reflected in the existing power relations, ideologies and practices’ (Foucault 2005).
We will draw on policy transfer theories (e.g. Dolowitz & Marsh 2000; Philips & Ochs 2003; Steiner-Khamsi 2004) and employ the concept of ‘externalization’ to search for explanations for different types of cooperation to develop processes of policy transfer (Schriewer & Martinez 2004; Steiner-Khamsi 2012; Steiner-Khamsi & Waldow 2014).
We expect to understand whether the Finnish education reputation made changes in Finland’s role in the OECD’s committees. In other words, we intend to unveil how influential Finland is in OECD’s education agenda, and whether Finland has been using the network established within the OECD’s committees for fostering global education development through initiatives such as education export.

Authors

• Helena Hinke Dobrochinski Candido, University of Helsinki

• Sari Eriksson, University of Helsinki