Finland has been ranked a world leader in media literacy for years. Children as young as kindergarten age are being taught to handle the disinformation they will encounter online. We talked to Kari Kivinen, the European Union Intellectual Property Office’s (EUIPO) education outreach expert. A former headmaster in Helsinki, he has contributed to shaping Finland’s media literacy education.
Experts worldwide have been calling for better media literacy to counter the spread of fake news. But while little has been done in many countries, Finland has actually taken action: In 2014, media literacy became part of the national curriculum for pupils of all ages. How were you able to take such decisive action?
It has to do with the Finnish education system, which is unique in many ways. We swim against the current global tide in education, which involves focusing on core subjects, competition and control. We place greater emphasis on general competencies than on testable knowledge. These competencies are outlined in the national core curriculum, which is regularly updated.
Finnish students’ performance has consistently scored higher than the OECD average and the socio-economic gap is narrower. Can you tell me more about the Finnish education system?
Every child in Finland has the right to free, quality education, regardless of where they live. We have a unified comprehensive school system to ensure that every child receives the same education and opportunities, the idea being for there to be no barriers: pupils receive free meals, books and transport. Teaching is a very popular profession, so universities are really free to pick the best candidates to train for this career. There is also a great deal of trust in schools, with heads and teachers themselves monitoring the quality of education rather than bringing in external inspectors to do so. I’ve been a head teacher in Finland myself and we take this side of the job very seriously.
What happened in 2014?
The new National Core Curriculum was introduced and multiliteracy became one of what we call “transversal education areas”. This means that every teacher, whether they teach PE, English or maths, is required to promote multiliteracy in all age groups.
Multiliteracy is defined as the ability to obtain, process and verify information. Why is this such a high priority?
In Finland, media and information literacy is considered a basic civic competence for democracy. It is promoted not only by schools, but also by libraries, NGOs and lifelong-learning institutions. And we foster this skill from an early age, as even most pre-school children have already been exposed to digital media: They have seen films and advertisements, listened to music, and some have played computer games. We want to show them how to use digital media devices in a balanced and civilised way.
