Finland country case study; Country case study prepared for the 2017/8 Global education monitoring report, Accountability in education: meeting our commitments; 2017

Teachers: High professionalism and trust 
One of the main cornerstones for the mutual trust in the Finnish education system is the professional 
accountability of teachers. Teachers in Finland have pedagogical autonomy and along with it, carry many 
responsibilities. Since the early 1990s there are ‘no inspections of teachers and only loose external standards 
steer the schools. This leaves teachers with good opportunities, as well as professional responsibilities, to focus 
on learning with their students rather than be concerned about frequent testing and public rankings of their 
schools’ (Sahlberg, 2010, p. 56). Teachers can decide on their own methods of teaching, textbooks and materials 
(MoEC, 2016b). They are almost solely responsible for assessment policies, disciplinary policies, and the content 
of their teaching (Välijärvi, 2015). 
1
The Ministry of Education (MoE) became the Ministry of Education and Culture (MoEC) on 1 May 2010. 

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National subject-specific evaluation criteria were prepared in 1999 for the compulsory subjects taught in 
comprehensive schools, indicating the level of skills and knowledge students should master at the end of 9
th
grade. However, these subject-specific standards are to guide and support schools and teachers in their work, 
not to act as criteria for monitoring and controlling. The standards are used in the sample-based learning 
outcome assessments by FINEEC, but the results are published only at the system level, not per individual 
schools. The schools that have participated in the assessment do receive their own results so that they can 
develop their instruction (Välijärvi, 2013). 
Teachers are one of the main success factors of the Finnish comprehensive school. They are highly trusted 
professionals in pedagogy, who are all required to hold Master’s degrees. The teaching profession attracts highly 
motivated and talented students. The culture of trust and autonomy that surrounds the teachers in Finland is 
termed by some experts as intelligent accountability (Sahlberg, 2010; Välijärvi, 2015). 
Teachers also participate in the shaping of national education policy and practices as stakeholders and experts 
of pedagogy. For example, the recently finished reform of the national core curriculum was developed in a 
participatory process, where teachers were involved in designing the new core curriculum (MoEC, 2015). 
According to Välijärvi (2015), the majority of parents in Finland do not pressure schools for higher academic 
standards. Since quality assurance is based on trust on the teachers and schools, Välijärvi argues that there is no 
room for competition in Finnish comprehensive education. In addition, differences between schools are so small 
and competition is very low, so Finnish parents can trust that the quality of teaching will be high in any school 
and they are not interested in selecting a school for their children (Välijärvi, 2013). Research shows that among 
their Nordic peers, Finnish parents are most satisfied with the teaching provided by schools and they do not 
support ‘market-oriented schooling or the ideology of competition’ (Simola, 2005, p. 459). 
The teachers’ trade union (Trade Union of Education in Finland, Opetusalan Ammattijärjestö) is considered a 
very strong actor in the field of education, with a 95% unionization rate and 120,400 members from all levels of 
the education system, from early childhood to higher education. The Trade Union’s ethical principles for teachers 
function as a part of the internal quality assurance of the profession. The ethical principles reflect the overarching 
theme of intelligent accountability in the Finnish education system, relying strongly on teachers’ professionality 
and sense of responsibility (Trade Union of Education in Finland, 2010). The ethical principles state that ‘the 
ethics of the profession are not based on compulsion or external supervision but on an internalized concept of 
the moral obligations attached to the work’ (Trade Union of Education in Finland, 2010, p. 2). To promote the 
implementation of the ethical principles, the board of the Trade Union nominates the Ethical Committee for the 
Teaching Profession. The Ethical Committee formulates opinions and issues statements ’on ethical matters 
connected with the teaching profession as requested by the governing board of the Trade Union of Education in 
Finland or its members, the authorities or other employers in the field of education, parents or students’ (Trade 
Union of Education in Finland, 2016). It may also make public statements on ethical matters concerned with 
teaching and issue warnings in cases of unethical conduct (Trade Union of Education in Finland, 2016). While the 
statements of the Ethical Committee are public, the discussions are confidential.