I think private schools should be banned. Too easy for the rich or even upper income class to gut public schools when you don't use them. Everyone getting the same education chance is what I call equal opportunity.
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Same for health care. If the rich had no other option but to depend on the public system, they'd be more likely to ensure it's properly funded.
Finland does actually have a private sector for health care.
The difference tends to be in how fast you get appointments for non-critical health issues. If I have a cough I'm worried about, I can go to my employer provided healthcare and speak to a doctor via phone in literally 20 minutes.
The public system atm would diagnose me with an automated quiz and determine my case to be "non-urgent". I would eventually get a doctors appointment, if I'm persistent and find all the right numbers to call, online forms to fill in, etc.
If the matter is urgent however, the public system takes things very seriously. And private sector doctors will even forward you to a public hospital in some cases, if they don't have the staff or equipment needed to help you in a particular case. With concussions for example, I've just walked into the local ER and been taken care of right away. If you need an ambulance, you don't need to weigh your life against bankruptcy.
The public system is also efficient (except when it isn't). That means you won't always see staff spend their time on bedside manner. Their job is to keep you healthy, not happy (unless you're there for mental issues). In my experience the private sector has a higher standard for customer service, because you're not just a patient when you pay for your care. Your satisfaction matters more since they actually care about getting repeat customers.
Meanwhile, public healthcare wold prefer you never come back, which is sometimes a good thing, and sometimes bad.
I use both sides of the system, and as I already mentioned, the two sides inter-operate in many cases. While it's been a huge mess at times, Finland is investing in a patient-data-management system called APOTTI which lets you switch doctors and care-providers seamlessly taking your patient-history with you. I once got x-rayd by my employee healthcare, then got sent to a hand surgeon in the public sector so I could get the diagnosis from those x-rays the same day. I left the private hospital and walked into the public one like they were operated by the same company. It's amazing.
Well, there are edge cases for private schools that would not make sense being solved by public schools. I moved a lot in my life (still do), and having access to schools in one of my children 's main language is an important thing for them. Those schools are still following local regulations though
There absolutely are private schools here what the fuck
Edit theres literally a set of laws surrounding public and private schools https://www.finlex.fi/fi/laki/ajantasa/1998/19980634
Do journos even do research anymore?
The headline is whack, the article talks about the private schools.
Which is why you double check your AI's output.
Its not whack, its lying
Lying is whack, and so is crack
Don't copy that floppy!
Hmm. What's a better, non-misleading title? Or is the article BS in general? I'll delete this post if it's false.
"5 years ago finland did aight in education but since then we reformed the system and now we're plummeting like the rest of the western world"
But how do they separate the rich from the peasantry?
Private schools are a privilege for the upper class and a symptom of the unjust social inequality in capitalism. In an egalitarian society with good public schools, private schools are obsolete and every child has the same chance to get good education independently of their heritage.
Private schools grant an "out" for the wealthy (and by extension, powerful). If they can pay for better results, they're actively incentivised to lobby to defund public schools. If the private option doesn't exist, they're incentivised to lobby to improve public schools (the ones with kids, in any case).
I'm afraid if private schools were removed the really wealthy would just send their kids to study in another country like they already do, and the middle class would lose this option, and we get worse as a whole
Nah just pay for after school programs. I wasn't happy with the level of progress I was seeing with my kids on certain subjects. So after a few attempts to push the schools I gave up and hired tutors. I am not really in the financial position to do this but the alternative is worse.
If there is one thing that my experience living in the UK (having lived in other countries of Northern and Southern Europe) has taught me is that private education as well as non-meritocratic access to higher education are a key component in suppressing social mobility and "keeping people in their place" across generations: in that country the rich and high middle class have this well established path for their children through very expensive private schools (curiously know over there as "public schools", in the same sense of "public" as "anybody can spend a night in the Ritz if they have the £400 to pay for it") and then an "interview" selection process for Oxford and Cambridge where selection criteria are arbitrary such as for example "having attended the right school" (as an aquaintance of mine was told he hadn't, as reason to refuse his application) so that people who popped out of the right vagina and were sent to the "right" (£30k a year+) "public" schools are guaranteed to get in and come out of the other side with a diploma from an "elite" (not quite when it comes to pupils, but definitelly can and do hire some of the best researchers and lecturers) university.
By the way this all continues into their career, since "public" school educated types leverage the connections acquired there (and mommy and daddy's contacts) to literally step into highly paid sinecures purelly on cronyism.
In the UK Education is very much part of a red carpet for life if you were born in the "upper" classes.
My impression there was eventually that, had I been born in the UK to the kind of poor working class parents I was born to, instead of having gone into Physics at Uni thanks to my very high grades at high school and 98% score at the entrance exam (though I ended up switching to and graduating as an EE) and having a successful career across various countries of Europe in Engineering, I would've at best been a car mechanic because the education system in the UK is not at all meritocratic and is designed first and foremost to preserve class membership through the generations.
All this to say that Britain is a perfect example of a very well establish use of private education to maintain the lowest level of social mobility in all of Europe.
PS: Oh, and don't get me started on how "public" schools are "charities" (kid you not!) and thus pay no taxes. It's the very definition of "adding insult to injury" or as they would say over there "really taking the piss out of everybody else".
Interesting, thank's for the elaboration!
Private schools are a privilege for the upper class and a symptom of the unjust social inequality in capitalism.
Same issue with private health insurance in the US vs. universal healthcare in most other developed countries.
My father went to one of the oldest English "public" (i.e. private) schools. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Latymer_Upper_School He didn't talk about the academics, which is surprising for an academic- he talked about the antisemitism he faced every single day from kids, teachers and staff. I'm sure it didn't help that his parents were poor and he was there on scholarship.
I went to a private school in the U.S. for elementary school. I was bullied every day, not just by the kids, but by the only teacher I had from first through sixth grade, and he terrified me so much that my parents didn't know until I was an adult and my mother ran into another kid I went to school with who talked about how sorry she felt for me.
My daughter goes to an American public school. She is bullied a lot too (we're an eccentric family), but at least the teachers are mostly on her side, and if one isn't, I have someone to complain to about it. I wouldn't even think of risking her in a private school.
Your family is not eccentric. It's exceptional. There is a big difference. Unfortunately people are afraid of that,that seems different to what they are accustomed. When they cannot do something the other can, they ridicule it. Being bullied feels like shit. Be there for your daughter and help her steam out all the feelings she has. Help her make alliances with other kids in the school. let her choose to do sports or art she likes. teachers may take her side, but don't imagine that they'll do something, no mater how much you complain. I hope my response has some meaning for you
I'm sorry you experienced that, but to be honest it's entirely circumstancial. There are a lot of teachers in certain districts who normalize teasing students.
Not a huge bar to clear. UK education has been slashed to the bone.
Two out of three teachers I know personally have gone abroad to teach instead. If the teachers hate it what chance do the kids have?
Finland's schools are really good for a number of reasons, I'm not sure that private vs public is the only reason worth attributing it to, although i understand the context of the article makes it especially relevant.
For example, Finland provides three years of maternity leave and subsidized day care to parents, and preschool for all 5-year-olds, where the emphasis is on play and socializing. The state subsidizes parents, paying per month for every child until age 17. 97%* of 6-year-olds attend public preschool, where children begin some academics. Schools provide food, medical care, counseling and taxi service if needed. Student health care is free.
(* a decade ago, not sure if numbers and strategies are still accurate, I lifted it from a Smithsonian article from 2011 because I couldn't remember specifics. Please correct me Suomi friends)
When you don't allow rich people with the most resources to create special areas for their precious babies to get ahead, they suddenly care about funding public education ... from which the rest of that stuff you mentioned flows.
People need to realize that if the rich are boarding a different ship than you, they're actively sinking yours for profit.
I totally agree with public education and not funding private schools with public money - I'm not a fan of segregation. I also don't think that's its necessary to ban private schools before implementing other helpful policies, like maternity leave or health care. My point is more that these things all combine to create good public education rather than pointing at just one part and suggesting it is the fix. I think ignoring the other components leads to disappointment when the single-solution proposals fail to deliver the expected results.
To be totally real, I also wanted to tell people what specific things they can ask their elected officials for in their own communities as a way of achieving more equitable outcomes globally. There's no reason not to copy Finland's homework. Except that Finland doesn't set homework.
Edit: clarification
If you want to copy Finland, learn from and copy their election system first.
Don't bother asking your elected officials, because evidence shows that they don't represent their voters, they represent their donors. This is due to American's electoral system, specifically first past the post voting combined with electoral college. This prevents more than 2 parties, which prevents real competition in politics, which makes it easy for the richest people around to buy up all the representation.
Such is our reality now where they can say 'Sure, democrats and republicans are clearly on the take, but what are you gonna do about? Vote 3rd party and waste your vote?', and they'll be right. Election laws protect the 2 parties, because they've slowly changed them over time to do so. Even party primaries are a new addition.
So anyone wanting change in the USA needs to attack their safe seats and open up the playing field so we can have real representation again. Then you can ask your reps for stuff.
Government sure is trying to fix what ain't broke with their funding cuts, tho. For now, schools seem to still be doing their thing, but I'm not all too certain on how long that will continue.
No country is safe from the “we shouldn’t educate children unless it’s profitable” and “women only exist to have said children” situation, unfortunately. You would hope that examples like this would push forward a universal agenda of better public schooling anywhere, but instead the agenda coming off it from the rich is generally “oh no, we don’t want everyone to be well educated, just my children, who will specifically act like me as they age and increase the gap”
Never-mind that that a lot of the upsides of living in Finland, even as a member of the upper class, are thanks to the extremely high average level of education.
Where exactly do these people think all these highly competent workers able to fuel highly profitable and innovative companies are coming from?
But because the return on investment of education is paid back over a life-time, not quarterly, I guess it doesn't count. I pray these dinosaurs die off and allow new generations into government before it's too late. Luckily, that IS slowly beginning to happen.
this is just the age old addage "if everyone has to use it then there is an incentive for the gov to make it not garbage"
Force rich people to use the bus and suddenly the buses are going to get better.
Finland has great schools.
They've also solved homelessness. (Minus 1000 or so people who are willfully homeless, but that'll happen anywhere.)
I wish that PM Sunak was right about the result of this, because a class war is exactly what the UK needs. Unfortunately, his track record tells me that he'll be wrong about that as well.
Also, I always lol at the rich trying to appropriate class warfare language to mean that the poors will make fun of, or bear greater resentment to, the ruling class.
It's like saying that global warming is actually environmental terrorism, and that the rain must be held accountable.