Finland tops in future skills education: report

Finland has emerged top as the new leader in providing future-skills education for youth, according to the Worldwide Educating for the Future Index (WEFFI).

According to WEFFI, Finland’s strong policy, teaching and socio-economic environments propels it to top of 50 economies in the second edition of WEFFI.

Switzerland which ranked number one in the first edition of WEFFI followed closely in the second position.

The ranking looked into the policy environment, teaching environment, and socio-economic environment as three main index of assessment.

According to the WEFFI report, both Finland and Switzerland performed strongly in the three index categories, but they particularly excel in their policy environment—in, for example, the formulation of future-skills strategy and attention to curriculum and assessment frameworks.

According to WEFFI, future-skills strategy, curriculum and assessment frameworks should be reviewed periodically to keep pace with workforce and societal change. Most education systems in the index have reviewed their future-skills strategy in the past year, but fewer than half have done the same for curriculum and the assessment frameworks.

“The second edition of the index shows that while education systems are starting to recognise the importance of holistic approaches to learning, many gaps still exist. Economies around the world must strengthen assessment frameworks, regularise reviews of curriculums and improve teaching conditions. Perhaps most importantly, the recent retrenchment away from globalisation by many economies may threaten students’ abilities to develop an inquisitive mind-set and tackle the big problems of tomorrow.” said Michael Gold, editor of the report.

The Worldwide Educating For the Future Index 2019 assesses the extent to which education systems are equipping youth aged 15-24 with the skills needed in future. It covers 50 economies representing 93% of global GDP and over 6bn people.

The full report is published by the Economist Intelligence Unit, a thought leadership, research and analysis division of The Economist Group and the world leader in global business intelligence for executives.