Twenty Years of Finnish Technology Education

The Finnish educationalist Uno Gygnaeus (1810-1888) founded public schools in Finland in 1866 and introduced craft education as a compulsory subject. Hence, Finland became the first nation to make craft education an integral part of compulsory education. In spite of many development projects, in craft education learning is still focused on production skills and approaches that are dominant in craft education do not prepare students to meet the challenges of modern technology and working life. During last twenty years there has been an active discussion about moving into the direction of modern technology education. However, the development process proceeds with great difficulty and a decline has been noticed in several areas of PISA, including natural sciences. It can be concluded that an ideal solution in Finnish technology education has not been found.