International Journal of Educational Management

School autonomy, leadership and student achievement: reflections from Finland

Toni Saarivirta, Kristiina Kumpulainen,
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Issue: 7, pp.1268-1278, doi: 10.1108/IJEM-10-2015-0146
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IJEM
30,7
1268
Received 31 October 2015
Revised 13 January 2016
Accepted 25 January 2016
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International Journal of
Educational Management
Vol. 30 No. 7, 2016
pp. 1268-1278
Emerald Group Publishing Limited
0951-354X
DOI 10.1108/IJEM-10-2015-0146
The current issue and full text archive of this journal is available on Emerald Insight at:
www.emeraldinsight.com/0951-354X.htm
School autonomy, leadership
and student achievement:
reflections from Finland
Toni Saarivirta
Institute for Advanced Social Research, IASR,
University of Tampere, Tampere, Finland, and
Kristiina Kumpulainen
University of Helsinki, Helsinki, Finland
Abstract
Purpose The purpose of this paper is to provide national information on school autonomy,
leadership and student achievements in Finland.
Design/methodology/approach The paper is a literature review on Finnish studies focusing on
school autonomy, leadership and student achievement. The studies have been reviewed on the basis of
a content analysis.
Findings There exists a shortage of studies connecting school leadership to student achievements.
School leadership in Finland has been investigated in previous research, especially from the
perspective of shared or pedagogical leadership, but vast majority of the studies have focused on
teachers and educational staff, not directly on students. An evident reason for this is inaccessible
information on school-based data and the nature of education being a public good, which is supposed
to meet the same standards across the country.
Originality/value This review will provide the international audience a deeper understanding in
the school autonomy and leadership development in Finland.
Keywords School leadership, School autonomy
Paper type Research paper
Introduction
The Finnish schooling system has gained a worldwide reputation ever since the
Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA) tests started to provide
comparative data on student achievements in the Organisation for Economic
Co-operation and Development (OECD) countries. Finland achieved top positions in the
rankings and all of a sudden the country witnessed remarkable global interest towards
its education system. How do you do it? Whats the secret behind the success? Is the
Finnish system transferable to other countries? These questions have been repeatedly
asked year after year. Even though Finlands position in recent PISAs has slightly
declined, the Finnish schooling system still stands out in studies analysing well
performing schooling systems.
Finland has done well in its basic education, yes. The crucial steps, leading Finland
to where it stands today in terms of schooling as a free of charge service for children
and young people, were taken in the 1970s when the comprehensive school was
established. Different forms of basic education were combined providing a common
path for children from the first to the ninth grade. Before the 1970s, education in
Finland was based on a dual system: elementary school lasted for six years
(subsequently from seven to eight years), but after the fourth grade, a small number of
students were selected to attend grammar school that lasted for five (lower secondary
 school) to eight years (lower secondary and upper secondary school). Grammar schools School
were private, municipally run or state-run institutions that focused on academic autonomy
studies, in a similar way to upper secondary schools and universities. Elementary
schools were run by the municipality and focused on vocational and everyday skills
( Jaatinen and Saarivirta, 2014).
The joint comprehensive school has been a success in a relatively homogenous
population of 5.5 million people. The basics for schooling in Finland are in order, but at 1269
the same time there is a growing concern that previously well performing system is
tardy in reacting to new challenges and in making reforms and creating innovations for
future schooling. On the one hand this is understandable, since major mistakes in
schooling systems are simply too expensive to bear in terms of the importance of each
generations educational knowledge base. On the other hand, reforms and innovations
are needed for future learning and skills, because societies are in constant change with
ever increasing demands for new skills.
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This paper tackles the issue of school leadership and autonomy, especially with
regard to learning for future skills. Both of these can be expected to play crucial
role when developing schooling systems in the future. International studies have
argued that in the beginning of the schooling systems, centralised schooling systems
provide the most promising future scenario for learning, and, later on these systems
have a tendency to become decentralised (Mourshed et al., 2010). The Finnish schooling
system has been led top down ever since the 1970s, although nowadays the system
is municipally run under guidelines developed by the Finnish National Board
of Education.
In this paper we will examine how and to which end the existing national literature
on school leadership, particularly related to school autonomy and student achievement,
in Finnish studies is addressed. The paper also provides country information for a joint
research project on school autonomy and leadership with scholars from Hong Kong,
Australia, Israel, Canada, Singapore and England.
In the first section of the paper we will describe the main characteristics of
organising and managing schooling in the Finnish system. The following sections will
focus on the role of the school principal, the development of the principals profession,
school accountability and twenty-first century skills with respect to the New National
Curriculum which comes into effect in 2016. The final concluding section summarises
our observations and points out future research directions.

A centralised system in the beginning, more freedom later on

The Finnish schooling system was highly centralised in the 1970s and 1980s. Even the
smallest day-to-day management decisions were made by the Finnish National Board
of Education and the power at local municipal/school level to make decisions barely
existed. Schools had a to do list that needed to be followed precisely. The new system
was under the National Board of Education surveillance and the quality of the schools
was carefully monitored by school inspectors who regularly visited the schools across
the country. Nowadays, individual schools[1] respond directly to the municipality and
follow guidelines developed by the municipality. The Finnish National Board of
Education does not monitor individual schools, but collects sample-based information
on student achievement across the country (Alava et al., 2012.) Since 2014, this task is
undertaken by the Finnish Education Evaluation Centre.
The National Core Curriculum is the primary document that provides the general
guidelines for the municipalities as education providers. The first core curriculum was
 IJEM implemented in 1985 and was very detailed with regard to school functions.
30,7 Municipalities had several, law-based tasks that needed to be put into practice. In the
1994 National Curriculum, municipalities were given significant freedom to organise
schooling and the subjects offered, compared with the previous 1985 National
Curriculum. In the 1994 document, up to one-third of the curriculum was allocated to
non-compulsory subjects. Schools could provide classes on any area their students had
1270 an interest or their teachers had skills. In the early 1990s Finland was suffering from a
deep recession that hit the Finnish economy hard. The government had to simplify
the functions for the municipalities due to the countrys and the municipalities
economic situation. Both the public and private sector were in crisis therefore not only
the tasks for schooling, but other municipally run law-based tasks were alleviated
(Alava et al., 2012; Jaatinen and Saarivirta, 2014).
Ten years after the 1994 National Core Curriculum, the 2004 National Core
Curriculum took away much of the decision-making freedom from the municipalities.
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The freer curriculum had created sparks with a more customer-oriented approach than
students/parents had been used to in the past[2]. Financially every school within the
same municipality is in a similar situation. Municipalities allocate resources for each
school on the basis of the number of students in the school as well as its special needs.
If the school has more students in need of special assistance then the school budget is
larger, for example. However, different municipalities have different financial
situations: rural municipalities, for example, are usually faced with the most
challenging economic situations. Municipal curriculums and the organisation of the
school sector also differ from each other (Alava et al., 2012; Lindstrm, 2006). The new
2016 National Core Curriculum will come into effect next year. We will give insights
into the new curriculum later in this paper.

School principals role in student achievement

The school principal play a crucial role in developing the school and in creating a
positive and supportive atmosphere, together with the teachers, for the students
(Hopkins et al., 2014; Hattie, 2009; Dempster et al., 2011). Frequently the principal in
Finland was one of the teachers with no, or very little, managerial or leadership
training. Before 1978 Finnish schools did not have principals, as it is meant by the role
today. In the past, the principal was one of the teachers put in charge of the school by
order of the National Board of Education. Since 1978 the position of the principal was
clarified and its distinction from fellow teachers made explicit. However, during the
next two decades, the role of the principal was still very much about taking care of the
routine tasks specified by the Finnish National Board of Education. In the 1999 reform,
when the organisation and distribution of teaching hours was changed, principals
became true school leaders and since then, have been able to organise
the practice as they considered best, i.e. they were given more autonomy. Ever since,
the principals workload has increased, but principal training has not kept up.
Even though the profession of a principal is crucial to the school, principals are
amateurs that need better training. This fact has been recognised in several studies
(Alava et al., 2012; Pusa, 2014; Liusvaara 2014).
Alongside the shortcomings in principal training, there seem to be very few Finnish
studies indicating how the leadership of a principal affects students learning results.
Aho et al. (2006) have argued that one of the factors behind the success of the Finnish
school system has been the sustainable leadership which, in turn, has helped to make
reforms in schooling. However, sustainable leadership in schools, as argued by Aho,
 does not refer only to school principals but to the leadership of education as whole. School
This means that municipal and national levels also need to be taken into account. autonomy
Taipale et al. (2006) also argue that the success of the Finnish school system is due to
effective management/leadership and the quality of its school principals. The reason
for studies failing to focus on the relationship between school autonomy, leadership
and student achievement is most likely due to the fact that there is no systematically
collected national data on student achievement, compared to many other countries, 1271
and that the conditions and demands for school autonomy and leadership are
constantly changing, including the principals roles, responsibilities and expectations.
Moreover, Some municipalities have school achievement data, but so far the
information has not been used by external researchers (outside the municipality), such
as university scholars, for further analysis. The evaluation culture in Finland in this
respect is very different compared to several other countries (Kumpulainen and
Lankinen, 2012; Lankinen and Kumpulainen, 2013). Although the important role of
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school leadership in learning is recognised (Lahtero, 2011; Kunnari, 2008), these studies
do not utilise empirical data on the issue but rather draw on international research
evidence (e.g. Barth, 2007; Sergiovanni, 2006).
Several studies (e.g. Karikoski, 2009; Mtt, 2011) discuss pedagogical leadership
and shared leadership. Pedagogical leadership, in fact, has been recognised as one of the
key factors in todays and future principals tasks in Finnish schools. Pedagogical
leadership means the principals ability to motivate and support teachers in their
profession. These skills include the ability to identify teachers emotions, reflect on them
with the teachers and support each teachers professional development. In this respect,
current leadership in schools should be directed towards leading staff in a more
pedagogical way, not only in a traditional and managerial way. Mkel (2007) studied
what Finnish principals actually do when leading their schools and counted the following
percentages as a proportion of a principals daily routines: management and financial
tasks 33 per cent, network leadership (internal and external networks) 31 per cent,
staff management 22 per cent and pedagogical management 14 per cent. The concept of
shared leadership has emerged in studies on Finland ever since the 1999 reform
that dramatically changed the scope of principals tasks and gave them greater
power. Principals were no longer fellow teachers, but directors with greater
responsibilities. This reform created a certain divide between the principals and the
teachers. Currently through the shared leadership with vice-principal practices and
regional principal systems (e.g., in the city of Tampere in Finland) this gap has
narrowed (Hkkinen, 2014). Principals time constraints have also forced municipalities
to create new solutions for school leadership. Nowadays principals increasingly get
involved in activities outside the school network: schools are more open to the public than
in the past. Therefore principals require more social and networking skills.
The Finnish studies on pedagogical and shared leadership do not deal directly with
the impact of leadership on students learning results.
In terms of school autonomy, according to Karikoski (2009), Finnish schools operate
independently, but their independence is limited by economic constraints. Finnish
principals feel that they have freedom in their daily tasks, but the economic guidelines
specified by the municipal school authority restrict their freedom. The government
allocates funds for basic education to local authorities who independently determine
the use of these sources (Pulkkinen and Jahnukainen, 2015). Greater school economic
autonomy would therefore led to greater autonomy as a whole and might be a good
opportunity in developing more innovative learning environments.
 IJEM It has been reported, as discussed above, that Finnish principals are extremely busy
30,7 with their daily duties. In some cases principals work more than 60 hours a week and
feel very stressed about their workload (e.g. Saarivirta, 2009). With this respect the
job-description of the principals has changed in the millennium as well as the
expectations towards the profession. Daily, routine-based, management takes most of
the principals time and actual time remaining for leadership is limited. Even though
1272 some municipalities have made organisational changes to improve the situation, many
issues have yet to be addressed. As mentioned earlier, principal training is one of the
key issues for future schooling in Finland, since the prevailing principal training
system does not sufficiently support principals (Pusa, 2014). The Finnish National
Board of Education organises principal training that is, in fact, the main qualification
diploma for principals. This diploma can be obtained by passing a few book exams and
provides only administrative information for current and future principals on how to
run a school (a teacher must already have passed the diploma before applying for a
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principals position). Many of the acting principals feel that this diploma does not help
them in their daily routines and further training is definitely needed. It seems to be
common practice for principals to seek training from independent providers by
participating in external leadership and managerial programmes (Pusa, 2014). As noted
earlier, the principal should no longer act as one of their teaching colleagues only
following guidance provided by a centralised system, but act more as a professional
leader of the school. Principals operate in a totally different world now than decades
ago and in this respect, Finland has a lot to learn from the other countries. Familiarising
new principals for their work in Finland, for example, is not systemic like in Sweden,
Norway France and New Zealand, where specific principal introductory programmes
exit (Finnish National Board of Education, 2012). In Norway it takes 1.5 years to
complete the introductory programme when starting to work as a principal.

School accountability
All schools in Finland operate under the same basic guidelines created by the National
Board of Education. The National Board of Education is a part of the Finnish Ministry of
Education and Culture and is in charge of primary, basic, secondary and adult education.
The most important strategy document for the guidance of Finnish schools is the
National Curriculum. The document, about 100 pages long, describes the main principles
that municipalities and their schools need to follow, for example, the aims of schooling,
how many hours a particular subject needs to be taught and what levels of knowledge and
skill need to be met. The first national curriculum was implemented in 1985, the second in
1994 and the third in 2004. The fourth national curriculum will come into effect 2016
(Finnish National Board of Education, 2014; Ministry of Education and Culture, 2014).
Every municipality (around 300) in Finland is obligated to create a local curriculum
based on the National Core Curriculum. This document (often around 300-400 pages in
big cities) gives more detailed instructions for the schools on how to operate.
The schools then make their own curriculum based on these two documents. The
schools curriculum work is led by the principle and every teacher and other education
staff member of the school takes part in its development. The number of students in
each school is fixed, the exact teaching hours for every subject in every school is also
fixed (however, the schools may have a different emphasis on mathematics, languages,
etc.), when the schools are on holidays, etc. However, this document provides the
guidelines for each school within the municipality (Finnish National Board of
Education, 2014; Ministry of Education and Culture, 2014).
 Accountability is a somewhat grey area within the Finnish schooling system. School
Schools are profit units of the municipality. This means that schools are treated in a autonomy
same way as any other of the municipalitys units, such as hospitals, maintenance
offices, etc. and are therefore accountable to the municipality. The municipality is both
the organiser and provider of school services. Almost every municipality in Finland has
a chief education officer (in Finnish: koulututoimenjohtaja), who is selected through an
open call for the position and by the decision of either the municipal council or the 1273
municipal executive board. The chief education officer manages all school principals.
School principals are also selected through open calls or nominated by the Municipal
School Board. Class teachers are selected in a similar way, but the school principal is
usually interviewed by the Municipal School Board before a final decision is made
(Kanervio and Risku, 2009; Alava et al., 2012).
Finnish legislation obligates municipalities to take care of legal tasks. Basic
educational services (kindergartens, pre-primary, elementary and lower secondary
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schooling) are included in the legislation. Technically, the legislation obligates only the
municipality as a school organiser, not the school principal. A common development
has been that the chief education officers have delegated some of their duties, including
powers of decision, to school principals. These duties are expected to be even greater
for principals in the future (Kanervio and Risku, 2009; Alava et al., 2012).

Are Finnish schools autonomous?

In Finland, school autonomy does not have a clear and evident definition. One can talk
about financial autonomy, such as control over a schools budget, or pedagogical
autonomy, such as the freedom to select teaching methods.
The PISA (2012) assessment uses an index of school responsibility for resource
allocation as one definition. This definition includes selecting teachers for hire, firing
teachers, establishing teachers salaries, determining teachers salary increases,
formulating the school budget and deciding on budget allocations within the school.
According to the PISA (2012) results, based on school principals answers, in
Macao-China, the Netherlands, the Czech Republic and in the UK the principles report
the highest level of this type of autonomy in their schools. Principals in Argentina,
Greece, Turkey and Albania experience the lowest level of autonomy amongst OECD
countries. Finland is just below the OECD average according to the principals responses
on school autonomy. Average school autonomy scores have also been reported in the
comparative study by Rinne et al. (2015) considering eight European countries.
The PISA (2012) also defines another type of school autonomy, which is autonomy
over curricula and assessment. This includes: establishing student assessment policies,
choosing which learning materials are used, determining course content and deciding
which courses are offered. According to school principals, this type of autonomy is
highest in Japan, Thailand, the Netherlands and Hong Kong-China. The lowest school
autonomy of this kind was reported by principals in Greece, Turkey, Jordan and
Vietnam. Again, Finland ranks just above the OECD average.
The local autonomy of schools is currently a hot topic in Finnish education policy.
Principals have autonomy over schools budgets, however, hiring new teachers, for
example, is not solely in their hands. The principals opinion is taken into account, but
the municipalitys authorities make the final decision. This makes the system inflexible.
Leadership in pedagogical issues, however, is very different. Even though the
curriculum for an individual school is specific (subjects and teaching hours), organising
the teaching is left to the principal and to teachers. National, or municipal, curricula do
 IJEM not say anything about how to teach or what teaching methods should be used in the
30,7 schools. Specific aims for what pupils should know after each grade is completed are
determined, but how to achieve the aims is not (Saarivirta, 2009). Different regions also
have different needs, but there is no consensus about how to meet these. Many support
the traditional centralised schooling system in the spirit of equity. Supporters of the
centralised system argue that giving more freedom to the municipalities and schools
1274 would disrupt the well-established tradition of Finnish education, specifically that
schools should across the country should be the same and a decentralised system
would make them different. However, at the same time, many people support more
customer-oriented ways of thinking that highlight individual and local needs. Studying
Russian as a first option in foreign language, for example, makes more sense to
students living in Eastern Finland (close to the Russian boarder) than to those living in
Western Finland which has a stronger tradition of studying Swedish.
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The new national core curriculum, learning and twenty-first century skills
The National Core Curriculum is devised from the Finnish education policy.
As mentioned earlier, the national curriculum has varied in Finland from very strict and
authoritarian to being based on loose guidelines. The New National Core Curriculum will
be introduced in 2016 and will again provide more freedom to the organisers (the
municipalities) of schooling as well as for the schools themselves. Preparation for the
national curriculum involves hundreds of people and the process takes several years.
The process for the 2016 curriculum started in 2012 and is presented in Figure 1.
The National Core Curriculum is based on acts and decrees and is in line with the
Finnish educational policy guidelines. Ever since the 1960s, there has been a consensus
on the general aims of education that include equal opportunities in schooling that also
covers regional and socio-economic aspects (Aho, 2000; Halinen and Pietil, 2007;
Pehkonen and Seppl, 2007). Schools are supposed to be the same across the country,
the costs of which are covered by taxpayers. Free meals and schoolbooks are provided
for all children in a comprehensive school. After the national guidelines for the
curriculum are created, local authorities start to implement them at a regional
and school level.

National Core Curriculum

Education Acts and Decrees,
Government Decrees
National level Education policy guidelines
Development Plan for
Education and Research

Education provider Strategic leadership and management

level Decisions on the local curriculum

(Local authority) Organisation, resourcing, monitoring
and development of local efforts

Pedagogical leadership
Goals leading the development of
School level the school culture
Realisation of the school-based
Figure 1. curriculum
Curriculum process
Source: Halinen (2014)
 Finnish schooling is organised differently in distinct municipalities. The most common School
practice is that the municipality has its own education unit run by civil servants. autonomy
This unit is in charge of hiring school principals and teachers. The municipalitys
education unit prepares the municipal level curriculum, which will be further developed
for every school. The school principal approves the school-based curriculum, which has
to be in line with the municipal level curriculum. School-based curriculums are also
synchronised with the kindergarten curriculums (Tampere, 2004). 1275
Finnish school curriculums have traditionally been occupied by two subjects:
mathematics and the mother tongue, which are rewarded with more teaching hours
than other subjects. In the 2016 curriculum this will remain the same, but the new
direction is towards so-called soft-skills. These soft-skills include the arts, music and
social studies. More teaching hours will also be given to physical education, i.e. sports
and related activities (Halinen, 2014).
When looking at the public documents available at the Finnish National Board of
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Education website (www.oph.fi/ops2016), three themes for planning how to meet future
skills needs can be recognised. The first theme is learning and skills in a changing world.
It is obvious that the authorities understand that the world is rapidly changing and the
education system also needs to change. The student is seen as an active player (as has been
the case in the past as well), but the documents frequently mention how learning should be
more fun and how it ought to take place with the others. It is a well-known fact that Finnish
children do not enjoy schooling as much as children in many other countries (see, e.g.
Kmppi et al., 2012). The second theme that can be recognised in the National Board of
Education public documents is the discussion on learning environments. Again, learning
together, or sociocultural learning, as it is referred to in the documents, is highlighted. The
usability of information and communication technology is also mentioned and in this
respect the well-being of everyone within the school community is also elucidated. The
Finnish education has a long tradition of equity and a culture that dictates that the same
opportunities should be offered to everyone regardless of students socio-economic
situation or any other discriminatory fact, such as which part of the country the children
come from. However, municipalities are in a different economic situation: not all
municipalities can afford to provide iPads in schools for all, as may happen in some
municipalities. There has been a growing discussion within Finnish society about the
expanding gap between the rich and poor municipalities in the field of public services in
general (such as public healthcare, which is currently undergoing major organisational
change). The third theme recognised in the public Finnish documents is teaching methods.
The documents mention how teachers should hold the same ideas about the concept of
learning and how teaching should be able to differentiate when necessary. Differentiated
teaching is about adapting both to students with learning difficulties and to students
performing better than average in schools. How to enrich a students motivation and the
question about improving the usability of current and future technologies is also discussed.
When examining documents in the public domain pertaining to the 2016 National
Core Curriculum preparation process, very little about future skills is discussed.
Supporting wider knowledge and skills, however, is mentioned several times in the
documents available. Combing traditional subjects into bigger, more complex
ensembles is also sketched out, but not yet in a defined way. Nevertheless, in one of
the presentations, given by the counsellor of education, the following aspects (Figure 2)
of the New National Curriculum are mentioned.
It is evident that the principals role in bringing the National Core Curriculum, with
municipality additions, into practise is huge. Principals, for example, create the
 IJEM Thinking and Practical skills
and taking care
30,7 learning
of oneself

Involvement Cultural know-

and influence how and social
Student skills
1276
Skills needed in
working life and Medialiteracy
Figure 2. entrepreneurship IT-skills
The aims of the
National Curriculum
Source: Halinen (2014)

timetables for each teacher and count the teaching hours. Principals and leaders in
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general, can be seen as major players in the creation of a supportive and positive
learning working environment (Fredriksson and Saarivirta, 2015).

Conclusions
On the basis of the literature review of Finnish studies on school autonomy and
leadership, there seems to be clear shortage in studies connecting school leadership to
student achievement. School leadership in Finland has been comprehensively studied,
especially from the perspective of shared or pedagogical leadership, but the vast
majority of the studies have focused on teachers and education staff, not directly on the
students. The study by Rinne et al. (2015) on principals decision-making power
discusses school autonomy and learning, but do not directly deal with the student
achievement. An evident reason for the lack of connecting school leadership to the
student achievement can be traced back to inaccessible information on school-based
data and the nature of education being a public good which is supposed to meet the
same standards across the country. Finnish culture has relied extensively on trust and
especially on the trust for the teachers. Direct accountability of the schools for the
public audience is not yet that important issue in Finland like in many other countries.
School shopping due to parental voices has increased, but yet the majority of the
parents feel that the school nearest to home is the best choice for their children.
According to PISA (2012), Finnish school principals do feel that schools have
autonomy in relation to decision making at the school level. However, as pointed out in
a previous section of the paper, Finland is in this respect on an average level compared
with other OECD countries. Whether more autonomy and/or different forms of
leadership will lead to greater student achievement, is not clear, but definitely worth
studying more carefully in the future. A comparative international study on school
autonomy, leadership and student achievement is likely to yield important new
research knowledge to guide policy and practice in supporting every student to reach
their potential for the local and global world.

Notes
1. In total, 99.9 per cent of Finnish schools are publicly funded.
2. Some upper secondary schools adopted themes (such as horses or motor cycles) to attract
new students to their schools (Saarivirta, 2009).
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Corresponding author
Toni Saarivirta can be contacted at: toni.saarivirta@uta.fi

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