(A)

Finland has one of the world’s best performing education systems. Thanks to years of steady progress in education reform, its secondary school students regularly achieve high scores in PISA tests. The gap between the highest and lowest performers within schools is small, and there is little variation among schools or among pupils of differing family backgrounds.

(B)

One reason for Finland’s success is the high degree of personal responsibility conferred on both teachers and students. In the 1970s and 1980s, management of Finland’s school system was decentralized and traditional academic structures in upper secondary schools were replaced by flexible modular structures, giving pupils more choice in what they study. Teachers were given freedom to design their curriculum and choose textbooks.

(C)

Schools in Finland are focal centres for their communities. They provide a daily hot meal for every student, plus health and dental services, psychological counselling and a broad range of other services for students and their families. Responsibility for school funding is divided between the state and local authorities. Schools are mostly small in size, with minimal administrative overhead expenses, and are mainly funded by municipal budgets. The government transfer for municipal services is approximately a third of the real costs.

(D)

Teachers share a strong personal and professional commitment to helping students succeed. They assess their students on an ongoing basis, but also focus on helping them to take increasing responsibility for their own learning. Students are expected to work in teams on projects, preferably going beyond traditional subject or disciplinary lines.

(E)

A particular feature of the Finnish system is the “special teacher”. This is a specially trained teacher assigned to each school whose role is to work with class teachers to identify students needing extra help, and then work individually or in small groups with these students to provide the support they need to keep up with their classmates.

Swiss businessman and humanitarian Henri Dunant was forced to drop out from high school when his family could not afford his tuition, and he was later apprenticed as a bank executive where he gained decision-making and organisational competences. In 1856, he created a business to operate in foreign colonies and he was granted a land concession by French-occupied Algeria. However, the land rights were not clearly assigned and the colonial authorities were not especially cooperative. Therefore Dunant travelled to the Italian town of Solferino, where he had hoped to obtain business permits from Napoleon III, the French emperor, who was commanding Franco-Sardinian troops there. Arriving on 24 June 1859, Dunant witnessed the consequences of Napoleon’s huge military confrontation against the Austrians, the Battle of Solferino. More than 20,000 wounded, dead and dying remained on the battlefield.

The sight shocked his conscience and inspired Dunant to write his best-known book,A Memory of Solferino. More than merely describing the horrors of war, he used the last third of the book to propose a solution – that relief societies should be formed in every nation of the world, to provide care and comfort to the wounded in war and ca tastrophe.

In 1863, Dunant joined the Geneva Society for Public Welfare, which became the International Committee of the Red Cross. This group hosted its first Geneva Convention in 1864, laying the foundation for the concept of international law, as twelve nations agreed to allow wartime movement of medical and sanitary personnel and to ease their access to needed supplies.

During the Franco-Prussian War of 1870, Dunant personally led Red Cross delegations that treated soldiers. Building on this success, Dunant called a second Geneva Convention in 1872, which led to agreements on the treatment of prisoners of war and pioneered the concept of settling international disputes in courtrooms instead of on battlefields.

Beyond his work with the Red Cross, Dunant pursued at least three other charitable projects – none of which had any noteworthy success. Both he and his business were driven to bankruptcy in 1867, and Dunant found himself over a million Swiss francs in debt.
Over subsequent decades, even as the Red Cross made significant humanitarian gains, Dunant spent many years virtually homeless.

In 1892, he was located by a Red Cross volunteer, who arranged for the aging Dunant to be admitted to a hospice in Heiden, where he spent the remainder of his life. In 1901, Dunant together with Frédéric Passy, was awarded the first Nobel Peace Prize, and Dunant gave his share of the cash stipend to charity.