The world has changed a lot in the last few decades, yet the way our schools prepare our children has remained largely unchanged. Today more than 260 million children worldwide are out of school, yet more than half of those in education are not learning, the World Bank has warned in a report published recently. A significant number of students struggle needlessly – simply because the way they learn doesn’t align with how they are being taught. Many become disengaged. There is a need to forward-thinking about the education systems and learning models, particularly those in which individual talents are acknowledged and nurtured. Albert Einstein correctly observed, “we can’t solve problems by using the same kind of thinking we used when we created them.”

As an example, the education system of Finland which is counted as one of the best education systems in the world, is cited here. In Finland, kids start school at the age of 7. In many countries, this is unheard of. It’s scientifically proven that at the age of 3-5 years when we generally put the children in school, they are in no way ready for sitting down in classrooms and holding pencils in their hands. Finland adopts student-driven education in which students are encouraged to think, to understand and to look for information themselves. They are even encouraged to find questions to which even their teachers might not have answers to. In Finland there are less exams than in other countries, because the point of school is not to pass exams but to learn. When a kid does not learn things as fast as his peers, a special education teacher is assigned to help him/her. In Finnish schools, there is statistically a lot less homework than in other countries. According to the Finnish education ideology, kids are supposed to be taught in school, not at home. As for the length of school days, Finnish kids spend a lot less time in school than kids in other countries. This leaves time for children to be children, and to enjoy their free time.

It is not necessary to adopt the Finnish education system here in our country but we can debate more how we can strengthen our education system. The education system here needs a complete revolution otherwise we can’t explore the real talents of our children and make them true human beings in life.