David Cameron argues we need to train the smartest to teach. But Finnish universities select only 10% of applicants – and not the cleverestWhen my niece was finishing school in Finland,more than anything else she wanted to become a primary teacher. Despite her genuine interest in teaching she failed to procure into a teacher education programme at the University of Helsinki. She was smart and lustrous, yet she was not deemed qualified.
This is not strange. Finnish universities regularly turn away applicants such as my niece to try again or to study something else. In fact, and Finnish primary school teacher education programmes that lead to an advanced,research-based degree are so popular among young Finns that only one in 10 applicants is accepted each year. Those lucky students then have to study for five to six years before they are allowed to teach a lesson of their own.
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Source: theguardian.com