A Study Of Non-graded System In Finnish General Upper School

Non-graded System is a form of individualized instruction, it have began to drawn theattention of the education workers after the world war ii. According to the literature, in the1950s, there have appeared three famous non-graded middle school in the United States. Butthe flaws owed by non-graded system make the system’s further promote have greatdifficulties, as someone asserted:"if you want to make the non-graded system change to be ameaningful and practical choice, as well as a parallel system with grade system, there must bea comprehensive and thorough reform on the whole system of education."Finnish non-graded system reform on high school began in the1980s, and it is generatedmainly from changes of the Finnish domestic politics and the economy and the educationalphilosophy. During the process of non-graded system reform, Finland carried on a radicalreform on the whole system of high school education, which mainly included courses,teaching, evaluation and management, etc. As a result, Finland formed a unique non-gradedsystem, and it is also the reason why Finnish non-graded system can successfully spread inthe whole country and achieved good results.This paper is divided into the following six parts to illustrate the non-graded system inFinnish general upper school:The introduction part mainly includes the question proposed, the core concept definition,research status, research ideas and methods, etc.The first chapter mainly introduces the background and theoretical basis of Finnishnon-grade system. Finnish non-graded system is mainly based on the transformation of itsdomestic political and economy and the education idea, since the1980s, Finland began tochange to post-industrial society, and the new liberalism idea began to infiltrate into the socialvarious aspects. As the important pillar of the development of Finland, education’s reform isinevitable. The theoretical basis of the reform mainly includes the humanism psychologytheory, constructivism learning theory, the development of conception of equality in educationand the individualized teaching theory.The second chapter is to explain about the curriculum of the Finnish non-graded system.The curriculum of non-graded is different from the traditional curriculum both in setupprocedure and structure and content. Curriculum is setup mainly through the national corecurriculum framework which provides basic content and direction of the curriculum, and thecurriculum transform the traditional discipline for learning areas, subjects and coursesthree-level course system.The third chapter mainly introduces the teaching method and supporting measures of Finnish non-graded system. Students’ learning is mainly through elective system, in whichthey determine their own learning plan, custom learning pace and time. While thearrangement of teaching time and space is based on courses, and teachers change thetraditional teaching method. In addition, it also introduced a series of supporting measures ofthe non-graded system.The fourth chapter mainly introduces the evaluation mechanism of Finnish non-gradedsystem. Finnish non-graded system adopted the suitable evaluation mechanism, which dividedthe whole evaluation into three categories which are course evaluation, subject syllabusevaluation and the entire general upper secondary school evaluation.The fifth chapter summarizes the characteristics and problems of Finnish non-gradedsystem. Characteristics mainly include module-based learning, attaching great importance tostudents’ autonomy and personalization, curriculum evaluation with more flexibility andrationality, cancelling semesters and replaced with the learning segments and flexibleschooling, and the strengthening of cooperation between schools. At the same time, existedthe following problems: if students’ maturity can adapt to the autonomous planning study,increase of money and time cost and the dispute of Matriculation Examination, etc. The last isthe conclusion of the article.