One special feature in Finnish schools is the fact that the Finnish students have their first common standardised test when they are 18 -19 years old. It is the matriculation examination and it takes place at the end of the Upper secondary school. Some nationwide exams exist in the lower school levels as well, but they are not obligatory and they are not used to rank school. The focus is on learning instead of testing. The less competitive culture might explain the smaller role of the exams in schools. If a culture is competitive and ambitious, students might mind a lot about their exam results because they give information about students’ success. In Finland the quality of life is more valued than competition. But to be honest, there are exams at schools and students stress about them. But there exist very few standardised exams and a lot of time and energy is put on formative assessment instead of summative assessment. Teachers are encouraged to develop versatile qualitative assessment methods and individual feedback methods to students.
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