T

he government says it wants to learn from Finland, known to have one of the best educational systems in the world, to improve education.

Despite the obvious differences between the countries'€™ two systems, Education and Culture Ministry secretary-general Ainun Naim said on Tuesday that the ministry hoped the cooperation would assist in the reform of the domestic system.

'€œWe are hoping to set a new benchmark for education. However, we must acknowledge we both have different social conditions, which means that an education system that works perfectly in one country may not translate perfectly. We have to take in other considerations,'€ Ainun told reporters at the '€œFinnish-Indonesian Symposium on Education and The Role of Teachers'€ in Jakarta on Tuesday.

Ainun said that the cooperation would involve the exchange of knowledge through forums and seminars, as well as intern programs for Indonesian teachers, academics and students in Finland and vice versa, following the visit by Finland'€™s Education Minister Krista Kiuru to Jakarta in August.

During the symposium, Finnish educator Pasi Sahlberg said that Finland'€™s education system featured a systematic focus on equity.

'€œEquity means that the system has to be designed in a way that will help, with a particular focus on children who come from families or backgrounds that do not support their learning,'€ Sahlberg said. '€œEquity means that the school system must endeavor to compensate for those things,'€ he continued, adding that schools with more students from poorer demographics should receive more financial support than other schools.

Finland did not recognize national-standardized exams, he said, the only standardized examination was conducted at the end of high school, when students were around 18 years old.

Speaking at the symposium, Eero Ropo, professor of education at the University of Tampere in Finland said that the elimination of a national examination had been proven to improve teachers'€™ performance.

'€œSince we have no national test, teachers are more engaged with their work and focus on actually educating students and not test scores,'€ Ropo said. '€œThe role of the teacher is not about testing or scoring. They are there for their students,'€ he continued.

Separately, Education and Culture Ministry director general for secondary education Hamid Muhammad said the ministry had tried to improve the education through teacher competence tests as well as the development of a new curriculum.

'€œThe new curriculum is part of our response to the low PISA [Program for International Student Assessment] results,'€ Hamid said. The 2009 PISA ranked Indonesia 57th out of 65 countries, in 2006 it came 49th out of 57 countries.