Best Education System for Children

According to the World Top 20 Project, an authority website that provides annual worldwide rankings of the top 20 education systems out of 200 countries, the United States is mentioned in only one of their lists. In this grouping, the United States just made it to the number 20 position in ranking the top 20 best education systems globally.

Finland, Denmark, and South Korea are in the top three positions for their 2020 education poll rankings. These countries are all positioning themselves to create economic and social stability for their citizens.

What are the secret ingredients? Let’s take a deeper dive into these five factors.

They differ in giving early education

Finland, Denmark, and South Korea’s early childhood education systems are designed around learning through play.

Children learn best when using their imagination:

Play sparks opportunities to learn vocabulary,

It offers social and emotional development opportunities, and

It allows for critical thinking.

There are different types of play, and in various ways, activities can be structured through play. These early childhood foundations are the building blocks for academics.

Standardized tests

Finland and Denmark have no standardized tests until the student reaches higher studies, and the South Korean system doesn’t have any exams in their primary schools. As there is no annual standardized testing, there are still methods that these education systems check a student’s capabilities.

As such, assessments are tailored to individual students in these schools. However, these assessments are done by the teachers who already know the objectives for a respective subject for each student. Finnish students take only one voluntary test at the end of their upper-secondary school, called the National Matriculation Exam. From this test, it is discovered whether the pupil has gathered all the knowledge and skills taught in the upper secondary school curriculum or whether they have reached the goals that the curriculum was set for.

Outstanding level of numeracy

The international education rankings in 2020 have also exposed the fact that the students of the best educational systems showed an excellent understanding level of numeracy. The students of these educational systems perform really well when it comes to dealing with numbers and statistics.

In this regard, the Finnish school system has been making some reforms over the past 40 years. The program that Finland shaped was stressing over learning key skills such as numeracy and problem-solving for their students instead of just cramming the basic rules like before. Consequently, Finland has scored high, not only in the assessment like PISA but also in a competition called Survey of Adult Skills, PIAAC.

Similarly, the South Korean Education system is an excellent example of teaching the core principles of numeracy. Above all, in Danish schools, reasoning and devising different strategies are part of most subjects to enhance kids’ learning competency. Students in Danish schools are given assessments as their school projects on a weekly basis.

While collecting data from diverse sources, the kids’ ability to analyze a problem automatically makes them highly proficient in assessing an issue and analyzing a situation. In conclusion, Finland, Denmark, and South Korea have some of the best education systems in the world, but they are also reducing the gap between their education systems and the work industry.

In Denmark, students start their higher education by working alongside, while Finnish students usually begin taking jobs in their expected careers as interns or apprentices during their high-school education. Consequently, these countries are also becoming leaders in economic sectors such as finance, construction, and manufacturing.