“The time has come to ban cellphones in the classroom”. Wait, wait, but “A blanket ban on cellphones in class would not be smart”. These were the headlines of two op-eds published in Canadian daily newspapers in early September. This debate has already reached an international scale: Since 2012 most teenagers in rich countries have had access to smartphones. In Kerry, Ireland, one school has restricted children’s use…
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One of the biggest questions parents face is when to send their child to school. There are many factors to consider in Australia: is the child ready, will he/she be the youngest in the class, what kind of school, can we afford high child care fees, what are other mothers and fathers doing, and so on. As an education expert soon to be moving to Sydney from Finland with my family, with two boys aged 3 and 6, these are the sorts…
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This is an interview by Fábio Takahashi in Folha de Sao Paulo (in Portuguese) on 23 April 2018 Fábio: You mention in your book that Finland learned a lot with other countries in order to build its educational system. How Finland could inspire Brazil, even with so many differences (such as income, area, and population)? Pasi: First of all, I think you ask the right question when you use the word ‘inspire’. This is exactly…
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In December 2017, at the Online Education Berlin, I sat down for coffee with Zoey Zhang. Zhuoying (Zoey) Zheng is a young Chinese journalist from JMDedu studying master of marketing in Germany. Having studied in Europe for two years and doing global projects in Asia, Latin America and Europe, she wants to drive intercultural communication through business and education innovation. Currently, her research focus is on the education…
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Should kids use their smart phones in schools? This question divides not only teachers and pupils but also educators and parents outside schools. Those in favour of free or politely restricted use of these gadgets argue that technology is part of youngsters' lives and learning and they should therefore be allowed to have them in schools. Those who would like ban or heavily restrict smart phones in schools say that malpractices,…
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What are the key things the Finnish education system can teach the world, and Australian education systems in particular? Pasi: Finland has become one of the most investigated school systems in the world. At the same time, however, there are many myths about Finnish schools around the world. A rather common mistake is to think that Finland’s education system can be exported to other countries, or that copying elements of it…
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Interview in the DELPHI for the Great Conference of Ideas, 1 February 2018, Vilnius “What can Lithuania learn from Finland’s education system?” What, in your opinion, contributes the most to the quality of the primary, secondary and higher education? Pasi: It depends what do you mean by ‘quality’ of education. In daily conversations about the quality of education we often mix ‘the quality of a school or a university’…
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The World Development report 2018 (WDR2018) is right about the global learning crisis: many children not in school, educational inequity, and low quality of learning outcomes. But it often misses the point when trying to use available evidence to realize education’s promise. The problem is that there are so many ‘facts’ now available about how to fix education, that anyone – including the Bank – can easily gravitate…
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You know “big data”—petabytes of digital information, smart machines calculating with algorithms what’s likely to happen next. That’s how global financial markets are run today. Personalized advertisements pop up on your smartphone screen based on data from your web browsing history, or millions of others like you. Even in professional basketball, coaches set their game plans based on millions of data items caught by…
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Published in The Irish Examiner, Wednesday, June 07, 2017 IMAGINE reading this story in the year 2000. News about shining educational innovation included how literacy and numeracy strategies had caused steady rises of student test scores in England, how free schools had vitalised education markets in Sweden, and how higher external expectations for all children promised closing the achievement gap between those who have and those…
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