Saturday, September 14, 2013

China's education plan ... from Finland's playbook

China's education plan ... from Finland's playbook:

China's education plan ... from Finland's playbook

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Published: Saturday, 14 Sep 2013 | 7:00 AM ET
By:  | Managing Editor, CNBC.com
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XiXinXing | Getty Images
If you think the business competition from China is hard now, brace yourself. It will likely get tougher in about 20 years or so. And how is China doing it? By borrowing a page from Finland.
At first blush, though, it would appear that China is simply lightening up.
"The Ministry of Education plans to lessen the heavy workload," said CCTV, China's state television network explained in a post on the English version of its website.
Under the proposed guidelines, which are still under discussion, "primary schools may no longer set any form of written homework for students in grades one to six,"said CCTV, "Instead, schools should work with parents to organize extracurricular activities and after-school assignments, including museum tours and library study."
In addition, the new system would revamp scoring systems and reduce the number of mandatory exams.

Top Academic Performers

SciencePISA ScoreReadingPISA ScoreMathPISA Score
Shanghai, China575Shanghai, China556Shanghai, China600
Finland554Korea539Singapore562
Hong Kong, China549Finland536Hong Kong, China555
Singapore542Hong Kong, China533Korea546
Japan539Singapore526Taiwan543
United States502United States500United States487
Source: Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development
To be sure, China's current education system has produced some stellar results. In the OECD's latest Program for International Student Assessment exams, Shanghai