Education Steps That Make Nation(s) Successful

Education has always been discussed and debated throughout human history. Artists, scholars, and, especially, teachers are consistently keen to provide the best education for their students. Hence, many people have given their ideas as to how to improve learning. But only some theories worked and ultimately gave benefit to many.

Generally, there are tons of examples of fruitful ideas in education. These ideas, for the most part, have the same characteristics in them. They are innovative, practical, and, most importantly, scientific. As to how we can conclude that policies met the criteria, we can look at the output they produce and the inputs we must spend.

On the other hand, policies aren’t that effective when they are not applied correctly. It can be the change is too drastic, or even the approach itself is detrimental. No matter how good the theory behind it, the chances of failing will be high—if not formulated thoroughly. For this reason, we should try to comprehend why several ideas work and try to understand the concepts behind it. After that, we can copy them and, hopefully, create the same environment in our lives.

The Maple Story

In Canada, the government doesn’t have direct control over its education. Instead, every province has its territorial department of education. Therefore, the schooling system in Canada is much more decentralized than most of the world. Generally speaking, decentralization isn’t bad. Moreover, it can even be more useful since government bureaucracy isn’t holding education back.

Interestingly, every head of the territorial department uses other provinces as their benchmark of education. They collaborated to ensure the best learning institution is available for the people. For example, an education breakthrough in Ontario will be implemented in British Columbia to make sure that every citizen has the right to equal education and will possess the expertise needed to become useful in the future.

Canada’s education started to grow immensely during the late ‘90s. In those years, the Canada Ministry of Education (CMEC) issued a declaration to serve as a foundation of education goals. Accordingly, it is stated that education must be accelerated to develop the nation’s social and economic ability. Because of that, they view learning and schooling as something that must and will be achieved equally by its people. Hence, they reformed its education policies to remove every possible barrier to do just that.

The Tale of the Nation of Rising Sun

Unlike Canada, Japan’s success in the education sector is attributed to its comprehensive education policies. The Japanese government heavily influences its education through the Minister of Education, Culture, Sports, Science, and Technology (MEXT). Additionally, Japan’s core idea of education is to understand the underlying concept behind every subject. Because of this, students can answer application and curriculum-based tasks. And above all, Japan’s egalitarian society also helped to achieve nation-wide success in education.

After World War II, Japan had been promoting equal opportunities regarding education for its people. Being one of the most disciplined nations, Japan believed that the only way of success is hard work and self-control. Correspondingly, hard work in school will eventually lead to a higher performance that resulted in better life quality because of the opportunities provided. Subsequently, students are demanded, and also conditioned, to give their best in learning processes.

Japanese education policies and disciplined society push every member of it to give values to each other. Japanese believed that the higher value they provide, the more their merits are. With this concept, the most contributing member of society is considered to have a higher status. Therefore, they are eligible for the best service in the community. For this reason, students of Japan are highly skilled competitive in almost every field.

The Happiest Country’s Education

Finland has been a prominent nation in the education field for years. Moreover, this nation has appealed to learning experts and observers alike to study what makes them great at education. This Nordic country’s success may stem from the quality of its teachers and the always modern curriculum. Usually, Finland changed its curriculum every four years. By doing this, Finnish are continuously on the front end of receiving the newest and best education.

Finland’s achievements in the education field cannot be accredited to a single revolutionary policy, but they are the by-product of a constant stream of improvement over the years. For instance, in 2012, Finland’s curriculum is aimed to improve the effectiveness of subjects taught in school. But in 2016, the policy is shifted more toward how to learn themes effectively. Accordingly, Finland believes that learning how to learn is much more crucial. This change shows that the improvement is not particularly huge, but it is beneficial.

For all the benefits they received, Finnish has maintained well-built trust in their government. Following this, they are always encouraging and supportive of new helpful policies. Therefore, the cycle of people helping governments and governments supporting people exist through education.

A Wonderful Nation Known as Land of the Fields

Poland's dramatic improvement in education is a benchmark for many nations in the world. In the late 90s, most polish adults living in rural areas only received primary schooling. And in 2000, Poland scored below average on all Pisa assignments. But by 2018, Polish students achieved third on math and science in Europe. Admittedly, these fascinating results are summed up as a result of two major reforms in education.

The first reform is aimed to rebuild the structure of education. With this, the national examination is used as a tool to monitor student’s progress. The entrance exam to upper secondary school is not used as a qualification whether students can attend them. But it is used as a tool to know where students should apply next. Complimentarily, the second reform focuses more on teaching quality. This policy specifically aimed to improve educators’ ability to tutor students.

Poland’s massive change in education leads to a better life for its people. Firstly, quality education creates great people. Secondly, great people belong to a supportive society. And lastly, a supportive community will lead to growth in many sectors, such as the economy and education.

Summarization

In conclusion, every education-related policy can be a momentous step forward, as well as a significant step backward. Therefore, there is no right and wrong idea—only what works and what doesn’t work. Because of that, various nations receive successes because they can execute the practical approach and filter out the bad ones. If a developing country wants to learn the secret of prestigious educated states, the growing nation should aim to study what is practical and what is unpractical for them.