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For years, Finland has been the by-word for a successful education system, perched at the top of international league tables for literacy and numeracy.

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Pasi Silander, the city’s development manager, explained: “What we need now is a different kind of education to prepare people for working life.

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“Young people use quite advanced computers. In the past the banks had lots of  bank clerks totting up figures but now that has totally changed.

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“We therefore have to make the changes in education that are necessary for industry and modern society.”

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Subject-specific lessons – an hour of history in the morning, an hour of geography in the afternoon – are already being phased out for 16-year-olds in the city’s upper schools. They are being replaced by what the Finns call “phenomenon” teaching – or teaching by topic. For instance, a teenager studying a vocational course might take “cafeteria services” lessons, which would include elements of maths, languages (to help serve foreign customers), writing skills and communication skills.

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More academic pupils would be taught cross-subject topics such as the European Union - which would merge elements of economics, history (of the countries involved), languages and geography.

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European higher education remains too conservative to adapt to technological innovations, said a Commission High Level Group on the Modernisation of Higher Education in its report published last week (22 October).

The group, which was launched in 2012 to examine such challenges, makes 15 recommendations to EU member states about how to integrate digital teaching and learning methods in their educational curricula.

Current learning systems are reluctant to leave behind conventional classroom methods and restructure the way universities and schools operate. Teachers do not have the necessary professional training to cope with new ways of schooling. The institutions themselves are poorly equipped with new technologies in order to deliver high quality, online education.

“Although Europe is starting to make progress, it is still lagging behind the US in using new technologies in our universities and colleges,” said Mary McAleese, the former President of Ireland, and chair of the High Level Group. “We should capitalise on the strengths we have, such as the wide use of ECTS [European Credit Transfer and Accumulation System] credits to ensure that digital learning in Europe is recognised, accredited and quality assured.”

Students are also reluctant to enroll in online degree programs, as an alternative to traditional, classroom-based ones, because many online courses do not offer credits towards obtaining a diploma. In fact, one of the group's recommendations to EU countries is that they recognise e-learning as a legitimate part of the educational system, and formalise it.

Currently, there are in total 74 analytical highlights published on the EU Skills Panorama webpage, organized in four thematic areas: