Oh yes, wouldn't the Right love this

Here's an interesting short article on why Finland seems to have such a successful education system.

It paints a picture of educational philosophy that is, for the most part,  the complete opposite of what our current Right wing commentariate thinks about education:  an intense commitment to equality to access to education up to and including tertiary education; teachers who are very highly paid and very highly educated (masters degrees!) in how to teach, a national curriculum, small class sizes, and my favourite part for making the Judith Sloans of the world shake their heads in disgust:

School should be where we teach the meaning of life; where kids learn they are needed; where they can learn community skills. We like to think that school is also important for developing a good self-image, a strong sensitivity to other people’s feelings … and understanding it matters to take care of others. We definitely want to incorporate all those things in education.

Gee, I wonder what they teach about global warming and environmentalism?   All of the readers of Catallaxy would rather home school than put them through the Finnish system, I expect. (Several of them like the idea of home schooling in Australia because our education systems dares teach accurately on environmental topics, and tolerance of gays.)  I wonder if home schooling is illegal in Finland?

About the only thing the stoopid Right would like is a high emphasis on vocational training.