Another supposed benefit of competition is that it will produce excellence: people will be put on their mettle and will strive harder. I think that is absurd, to be honest. It is seldom questioned these days and no matter what we are talking about from retail to health care it is assumed that increased competition will lead to better outcomes
www.theatlantic.com/national/archiv...success/250564/So I was interested to come across this article about Finnish education. Finland is consistently amongst the top performers when international comparisons are made of educational outcomes. This followed a big reform of the system when the policy aim was "equity", and was openly espoused. It flies in the face of the predominant narrative and ought to serve to re-open this question: but as the article notes, the US (and the UK I would warrant) do not wish to know. They would like better quality education: but they like private profit and competition more, it seems.
There are no private schools in Finland. There are no league tables and few national tests. There is no obsession with "accountability" and the Finnish minister quoted summed up a great deal of what I was trying to get at in the accountability thread when he said
QUOTE
Accountability is something that is left when responsibility has been subtracted
That is beautifully expressed, and says something I took hundreds of words to say.
The Finns were more concerned with equity than with producing "stars". The fact this resulted in excellent education was apparently something of a surprise
QUOTE
Since the 1980s, the main driver of Finnish education policy has been the idea that every child should have exactly the same opportunity to learn, regardless of family background, income, or geographic location. Education has been seen first and foremost not as a way to produce star performers, but as an instrument to even out social inequality.
In the Finnish view, as Sahlberg describes it, this means that schools should be healthy, safe environments for children. This starts with the basics. Finland offers all pupils free school meals, easy access to health care, psychological counseling, and individualized student guidance.
In fact, since academic excellence wasn't a particular priority on the Finnish to-do list, when Finland's students scored so high on the first PISA survey in 2001, many Finns thought the results must be a mistake. But subsequent PISA tests confirmed that Finland -- unlike, say, very similar countries such as Norway -- was producing academic excellence through its particular policy focus on equity.
I think that what is true in education is true in many fields. Competition does not work if what you want to achieve is good education or good health or good social care and on and on. Yet that is anathema to the ruling ideology.
Edited by FionaK - 23/1/2013, 13:51
