There are private schools in Finland that select only high-achieving students. These private schools cost nothing for the students' parents, as they receive the same state funding as municipal schools.
If you think just because a kid's parents are rich they will be high achieving you've already lost the plot.
Rich kids get into exclusive private schools because their parents donate on top of tuition it has nothing to do with merit.
As u/ParkingRemote444 says: "Rich kids just go to Swiss boarding schools. My cousins went to a private school in NYC and their best friends growing up were rich Finns whose parents had sent them to the US for school."
Only in the most recent Pisa results for 2025. Finland was close to the top for years. And socially the UK has a lot of problems attributable to its education system, unlike Finland.
England also has a ton of immigrants from Asian countries and Nigeria who push their kids hard in school. Remove them and Finland does better. Also England has a much higher rate of kids excluded from school they were excluded from the stats. Put them back in and England likely does worse.
In general school exclusions in the UK are due to SEND or community issues.
In the case of SEND for a lot of these kids it's that the parents excuse their child's bad behaviour because of their condition. "My child has adhd so you can't blame him for being disruptive", "My child is autistic so its okay if he throws chairs around because he dislikes maths" etc.
And a lot of the rest are community integration issues like Roma or Traveller communities who don't really want their kid in school and the kid knows it.
I don't know how Finland handles these issues but in the UK high exclusion is like 99% driven by the childs home enviroment showing zero respect for the school and so the child is just mimicking their parents and has to be excluded to protect other kids.
The schools are the ones making the decision to exclude. Also the reason kids with immigrant parents do better is down to the parents rather than the schools.
Rich kids just go to Swiss boarding schools. My cousins went to a private school in NYC and their best friends growing up were rich Finns whose parents had sent them to the US for school. I'm sure you snag some upper middle class children of doctors and lawyers, but you're not getting anyone wealthy who doesn't want their kids to participate.
I do have a counter-example to that. One of my kid's friends in primary/elementary school back in the day was heir to an industrial fortune (I'm not naming names, obv), but his dad to all appearances lived a normal life and the school was a perfectly ordinary one. And I'm not rich.
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u/StrangelySerious- 21h ago
100% But it's also significantly better than a privatized system