Parliament in Finland debates leaving the Euro zone.

The Finnish parliament is debating whether Finland should leave the Eurozone after 53,000 people signed a petition asking that parliament debate the issue.

The petition was filed by MEP Paavo Vayrynen who said:”We should revive our economy by leaving the euro zone and reinstating our own currency (with a floating exchange rate). This will restore our competitiveness.” His main argument for leaving the euro is the fear that Finland might lose economic and political independence if it remains in the eurozone. The petition demands a referendum but only if the parliament supports it. The petition is a sign of growing frustration with poor economic performance, rising unemployment, and an outlook for weak growth. All of this is going on alongside a government austerity program. So far no political group has proposed Finland exit the Eurozone or a Fixit as it is called. However, some euro-sceptic parliamentarians claim that the lack of an independent foreign policy is a problem. Prior to entering the eurozone, Finland would reduce the value of its currency the marrka in order to stimulate export growth when it appeared necessary. The eurosceptics say that Finland should have had a referendum on the issue in 1998 when the euro was adopted. Sweden and Denmark voted against adopting the euro.

Simon Elo. an MP from the co-ruling euro-sceptic Finns Party said: "The euro is too cheap for Germany and too expensive for the rest of Europe, it does not fulfill requirements of an optimal currency union." Finland's economy managed just 0.5 percent growth last year and this was after three years during which it contracted. High labor costs and a recession in Russia are among the problems facing Finland.

Since Finland cannot devalue its currency to improve its competitiveness, it has adopted a controversial plan of "internal devaluation" including longer working hours to reduce unit production costs. Finance minister, Alexander Stubb, says the government is committed to the euro and that a "Fixit" would have more harms than benefits:"Our international position would probably weaken, our currency rate would become unsustainable... our country risk would be high and we would be likely driven into a situation where interest rates would increase." A December poll showed that 54 percent of Finns wanted to remain in the eurozone while 31 percent wanted to leave. Forty-four percent thought that Finland would do better outside the eurozone.

The petition still needs to pass through several stages in the Finnish parliament before it results in a plenary vote and a possible referendum. The next stage will be discussion with a parliamentary committee.

In the UK leaving the eurozone or a Brexit is a hot topic. Britons go to the polls on June 23 to vote in a referendum to decide whether to leave the 28-member zone or to stay in it.

Italian economy to shrink about 2 per cent in 2012

  Ignazio Visco head of the Italian Central Bank predicted that the Italian economy will shrink by around 2 per cent this year. Earlier he had forecast a smaller decline of 1.5 per cent. Italy appears to be headed further into recession.
     However Visco noted:" If the borrowing rate risk declines, and a shared solution for the crisis is found at the European level, at the end of the year I think we could see light at the end of the tunnel." Italy has been in recession since about the middle of 2011.
    Italy's cost of borrowing is increasing again. Yields on ten year bonds rose to over 6 per cent. Increased costs of borrowing exacerbate the debt situation. The increase in borrowing costs may in part be due to increase complaints from some northern countries about the cost of bailing out countries such as Spain and Greece.
     Italian Prime Minister Monti remarked:"The increase in the spreads after the EU summit is also due to statements that I consider inappropriate by authorities of northern countries that had the effect of undermining the credibility of the decisions taken by the EU summit,"  The Finnish Finance Minister had remarked that Finland would prefer to leave the euro zone rather than to continue bailing out financially troubled members. For more see this article.

Why the U.S. will not follow Finland's successful education reform model

            Chinese model. How to increase test scores and suicides.



 Finland is well known for the success of its students in many areas as measured by international surveys. The PISA survey takes places every three years by the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD). The survey looks at the performance of 15 year-olds in reading,, math, and science. In every survey since 2000 Finland has ranked at or near the top.The U.S. has not come near the top group. However the U.S. is adopting Chinese or East Asian models of standardized tests and the goals of measurement and striving for better and better results.  Finland starts out with an entirely different goal equity.
    Many of the key methods that the U.S. has adopted are rejected in Finland. The Finnish reforms did not even strive for excellence but for equality so that all students would have the same chances. This is assured by having an excellent education system with all the schools available to all students with no fees even through the complete post-secondary system. The idea of a tuition free university system is a reality in Finland. It is not even a Utopian fantasy in the U.S. A small country without any special resources nevertheless is able to provide free education at all levels for everyone. The U.S. the greatest economic power in the world has huge tuition fees and students are often saddled with huge debts when they graduate.
   Another difference between the U.S. and Finland is that Finland has no private schools. Except for some state funded church run schools everyone attends public schools. Finnish teachers are well paid  and well qualified for their jobs. They are regarded as professionals and are given responsibility for making up their own tests rather than having standardized tests for everyone. There is no merit pay. Teachers are regarded as professionals.
    In the U.S. schools compete with each other to see who can do best in evaluations based on standard tests. Finnish schools do not compete they cooperate with another. For much more see this Atlantic article.

Nokia cuts 20 per cent of work force as market share slumps

The global cellphone giant is losing market share to rivals Apple and Samsung and is burning through its cash reserves as well. The company announced that it would lose more than originally expected in its second quarter.

Nokia was once the dominant mobile phone producer but as with other companies such as the Canada based RIM it is losing market share to competitors. The company hopes that a new line of smartphones Lumia will turn its sagging fortunes around. However the software from Microsoft may not compete with its rivals.

A research analyst said:"The job cuts and profit warning underline the seriousness of the challenges Nokia is facing, particularly in light of the eye-watering competition from Apple and Samsung," Nokia based in Finland saw shares drop 10.5 per cent. As well as the only plant in Finland a plant in Canada will also be closed. For more see this article.

U.S. eleventh in World Happiness Rankings

The Earth Institute a think tank at Columbia University has released its first ever World Happiness Report. According to the report Canada is the fifth-happiest country in the world.

Surprisingly the top 3 are all those dark and dreary northern Scandinavian countries: Denmark, Finland, and Norway in that order.. Then comes the Netherlands close by Denmark. Canada is the happiest outside of Europe. The U.S. missed the top ten and came in at a relatively gloomy eleventh.

The happiest countries are among the wealthier countries and the least happy: Togo, Benin, Central African Republic are among the poorer countries. For much more and a slide show of the happiest countries see this article.

What Makes Finnish Kids So Smart?

It is interesting that the Finnish students do very well even though their technology would seem somewhat behind that of most countries since they still use chalkboards and over-projectors rather than power point. They also do not concentrate upon the gifted but have the better pupils help the slower. It does not hold the gifted back. The teachers are also given considerable freedom to choose curriculum materials. It is not set. There seem to be less rules than in many systems as well. Finnish parents do not have to worry about paying for their kids education even through college, a big difference for sure. Imagine if a U.S. politician campaigned on eliminating fees for higher education! He or she would be considered a left wing crackpot. But a small country with limited resources manages that without difficulty it seems.
"Each school year, the U.S. spends an average of $8,700 per student, while the Finns spend $7,500. Finland's high-tax government provides roughly equal per-pupil funding, unlike the disparities between Beverly Hills public schools, for example, and schools in poorer districts. The gap between Finland's best- and worst-performing schools was the smallest of any country in the PISA testing. The U.S. ranks about average.

Finnish students have little angstata -- or teen angst -- about getting into the best university, and no worries about paying for it. College is free. There is competition for college based on academic specialties -- medical school, for instance. But even the best universities don't have the elite status of a Harvard."





What Makes Finnish Kids So Smart?
Finland's teens score extraordinarily high on an international test. American educators are trying to figure out why.
By ELLEN GAMERMAN
February 29, 2008; Page W1

Helsinki, Finland

High-school students here rarely get more than a half-hour of homework a night. They have no school uniforms, no honor societies, no valedictorians, no tardy bells and no classes for the gifted. There is little standardized testing, few parents agonize over college and kids don't start school until age 7.

Yet by one international measure, Finnish teenagers are among the smartest in the world. They earned some of the top scores by 15-year-old students who were tested in 57 countries. American teens finished among the world's C students even as U.S. educators piled on more homework, standards and rules. Finnish youth, like their U.S. counterparts, also waste hours online. They dye their hair, love sarcasm and listen to rap and heavy metal. But by ninth grade they're way ahead in math, science and reading -- on track to keeping Finns among the world's most productive workers.


Finland's students are the brightest in the world, according to an international test. Teachers say extra playtime is one reason for the students' success. WSJ's Ellen Gamerman reports.
The Finns won attention with their performances in triennial tests sponsored by the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development, a group funded by 30 countries that monitors social and economic trends. In the most recent test, which focused on science, Finland's students placed first in science and near the top in math and reading, according to results released late last year. An unofficial tally of Finland's combined scores puts it in first place overall, says Andreas Schleicher, who directs the OECD's test, known as the Programme for International Student Assessment, or PISA. The U.S. placed in the middle of the pack in math and science; its reading scores were tossed because of a glitch. About 400,000 students around the world answered multiple-choice questions and essays on the test that measured critical thinking and the application of knowledge. A typical subject: Discuss the artistic value of graffiti.

The academic prowess of Finland's students has lured educators from more than 50 countries in recent years to learn the country's secret, including an official from the U.S. Department of Education. What they find is simple but not easy: well-trained teachers and responsible children. Early on, kids do a lot without adults hovering. And teachers create lessons to fit their students. "We don't have oil or other riches. Knowledge is the thing Finnish people have," says Hannele Frantsi, a school principal.

Visitors and teacher trainees can peek at how it's done from a viewing balcony perched over a classroom at the Norssi School in Jyväskylä, a city in central Finland. What they see is a relaxed, back-to-basics approach. The school, which is a model campus, has no sports teams, marching bands or prom.


Fanny Salo in class
Trailing 15-year-old Fanny Salo at Norssi gives a glimpse of the no-frills curriculum. Fanny is a bubbly ninth-grader who loves "Gossip Girl" books, the TV show "Desperate Housewives" and digging through the clothing racks at H&M stores with her friends.

Fanny earns straight A's, and with no gifted classes she sometimes doodles in her journal while waiting for others to catch up. She often helps lagging classmates. "It's fun to have time to relax a little in the middle of class," Fanny says. Finnish educators believe they get better overall results by concentrating on weaker students rather than by pushing gifted students ahead of everyone else. The idea is that bright students can help average ones without harming their own progress.

At lunch, Fanny and her friends leave campus to buy salmiakki, a salty licorice. They return for physics, where class starts when everyone quiets down. Teachers and students address each other by first names. About the only classroom rules are no cellphones, no iPods and no hats.

TESTING AROUND THE GLOBE


1

Fanny's more rebellious classmates dye their blond hair black or sport pink dreadlocks. Others wear tank tops and stilettos to look tough in the chilly climate. Tanning lotions are popular in one clique. Teens sift by style, including "fruittari," or preppies; "hoppari," or hip-hop, or the confounding "fruittari-hoppari," which fuses both. Ask an obvious question and you may hear "KVG," short for "Check it on Google, you idiot." Heavy-metal fans listen to Nightwish, a Finnish band, and teens socialize online at irc-galleria.net.

The Norssi School is run like a teaching hospital, with about 800 teacher trainees each year. Graduate students work with kids while instructors evaluate from the sidelines. Teachers must hold master's degrees, and the profession is highly competitive: More than 40 people may apply for a single job. Their salaries are similar to those of U.S. teachers, but they generally have more freedom.

Finnish teachers pick books and customize lessons as they shape students to national standards. "In most countries, education feels like a car factory. In Finland, the teachers are the entrepreneurs," says Mr. Schleicher, of the Paris-based OECD, which began the international student test in 2000.

One explanation for the Finns' success is their love of reading. Parents of newborns receive a government-paid gift pack that includes a picture book. Some libraries are attached to shopping malls, and a book bus travels to more remote neighborhoods like a Good Humor truck.


Ymmersta school principal Hannele Frantsi
Finland shares its language with no other country, and even the most popular English-language books are translated here long after they are first published. Many children struggled to read the last Harry Potter book in English because they feared they would hear about the ending before it arrived in Finnish. Movies and TV shows have Finnish subtitles instead of dubbing. One college student says she became a fast reader as a child because she was hooked on the 1990s show "Beverly Hills, 90210."

In November, a U.S. delegation visited, hoping to learn how Scandinavian educators used technology. Officials from the Education Department, the National Education Association and the American Association of School Librarians saw Finnish teachers with chalkboards instead of whiteboards, and lessons shown on overhead projectors instead of PowerPoint. Keith Krueger was less impressed by the technology than by the good teaching he saw. "You kind of wonder how could our country get to that?" says Mr. Krueger, CEO of the Consortium for School Networking, an association of school technology officers that organized the trip.

Finnish high-school senior Elina Lamponen saw the differences firsthand. She spent a year at Colon High School in Colon, Mich., where strict rules didn't translate into tougher lessons or dedicated students, Ms. Lamponen says. She would ask students whether they did their homework. They would reply: " 'Nah. So what'd you do last night?'" she recalls. History tests were often multiple choice. The rare essay question, she says, allowed very little space in which to write. In-class projects were largely "glue this to the poster for an hour," she says. Her Finnish high school forced Ms. Lamponen, a spiky-haired 19-year-old, to repeat the year when she returned.


At the Norssi School in Jyväskylä, school principal Helena Muilu
Lloyd Kirby, superintendent of Colon Community Schools in southern Michigan, says foreign students are told to ask for extra work if they find classes too easy. He says he is trying to make his schools more rigorous by asking parents to demand more from their children.

Despite the apparent simplicity of Finnish education, it would be tough to replicate in the U.S. With a largely homogeneous population, teachers have few students who don't speak Finnish. In the U.S., about 8% of students are learning English, according to the Education Department. There are fewer disparities in education and income levels among Finns. Finland separates students for the last three years of high school based on grades; 53% go to high school and the rest enter vocational school. (All 15-year-old students took the PISA test.) Finland has a high-school dropout rate of about 4% -- or 10% at vocational schools -- compared with roughly 25% in the U.S., according to their respective education departments.

Another difference is financial. Each school year, the U.S. spends an average of $8,700 per student, while the Finns spend $7,500. Finland's high-tax government provides roughly equal per-pupil funding, unlike the disparities between Beverly Hills public schools, for example, and schools in poorer districts. The gap between Finland's best- and worst-performing schools was the smallest of any country in the PISA testing. The U.S. ranks about average.

Finnish students have little angstata -- or teen angst -- about getting into the best university, and no worries about paying for it. College is free. There is competition for college based on academic specialties -- medical school, for instance. But even the best universities don't have the elite status of a Harvard.


Students at the Ymmersta School near Helsinki
Taking away the competition of getting into the "right schools" allows Finnish children to enjoy a less-pressured childhood. While many U.S. parents worry about enrolling their toddlers in academically oriented preschools, the Finns don't begin school until age 7, a year later than most U.S. first-graders.

Once school starts, the Finns are more self-reliant. While some U.S. parents fuss over accompanying their children to and from school, and arrange every play date and outing, young Finns do much more on their own. At the Ymmersta School in a nearby Helsinki suburb, some first-grade students trudge to school through a stand of evergreens in near darkness. At lunch, they pick out their own meals, which all schools give free, and carry the trays to lunch tables. There is no Internet filter in the school library. They can walk in their socks during class, but at home even the very young are expected to lace up their own skates or put on their own skis.

The Finns enjoy one of the highest standards of living in the world, but they, too, worry about falling behind in the shifting global economy. They rely on electronics and telecommunications companies, such as Finnish cellphone giant Nokia, along with forest-products and mining industries for jobs. Some educators say Finland needs to fast-track its brightest students the way the U.S. does, with gifted programs aimed at producing more go-getters. Parents also are getting pushier about special attention for their children, says Tapio Erma, principal of the suburban Olari School. "We are more and more aware of American-style parents," he says.

Mr. Erma's school is a showcase campus. Last summer, at a conference in Peru, he spoke about adopting Finnish teaching methods. During a recent afternoon in one of his school's advanced math courses, a high-school boy fell asleep at his desk. The teacher didn't disturb him, instead calling on others. While napping in class isn't condoned, Mr. Erma says, "We just have to accept the fact that they're kids and they're learning how to live."

Write to Ellen Gamerman at ellen.gamerman@wsj.com5