Media Releases

OISE presents the R.W.B. Jackson Lecture: Why the quality of Finland’s education system can exceed the quality of its teachers

April 10, 2014

TORONTO, ON – The Ontario Insti­tute for Stud­ies in Edu­ca­tion (OISE) of the Uni­ver­si­ty of Toron­to presents the annu­al R.W.B. Jack­son Lec­ture: Why the qual­i­ty of Finland’s edu­ca­tion sys­tem can exceed the qual­i­ty of its teach­ers, with Finnish edu­ca­tor and schol­ar Pasi Sahlberg on Thurs­day, April 17, 2014.

The qual­i­ty of teach­ing and edu­ca­tion­al change are major areas of pub­lic con­cern in Cana­da and around the world. Today many gov­ern­ments in search of a panacea to improve edu­ca­tion­al per­for­mance turn to teach­ers, believ­ing that if only they could attract ‘the best and the bright­est’ into the teach­ing pro­fes­sion, the qual­i­ty of edu­ca­tion would get bet­ter. In this year’s R.W.B. Jack­son Lec­ture, Dr. Pasi Sahlberg argues that hav­ing bet­ter teach­ers in schools will not auto­mat­i­cal­ly improve stu­dents’ learn­ing out­comes and that teach­ers alone can­not over­come the soci­etal issues affect­ing children’s oppor­tu­ni­ties to learn. Fol­low­ing a brief intro­duc­tion to teacher poli­cies in Fin­land, Dr. Sahlberg puts for­ward an intrigu­ing ques­tion: Why the qual­i­ty of Finland’s edu­ca­tion sys­tem can exceed the qual­i­ty of its teach­ers.

Pasi Sahlberg is a Finnish edu­ca­tor and schol­ar. He worked as school­teacher, teacher edu­ca­tor and pol­i­cy advi­sor in Fin­land and has stud­ied edu­ca­tion sys­tems and reforms around the world. His exper­tise includes inter­na­tion­al edu­ca­tion­al change, the future of school­ing, and inno­va­tion in teach­ing and learn­ing. His best-sell­ing book, Finnish Lessons: What can the world learn from edu­ca­tion­al change in Fin­land (Teach­ers Col­lege Press, 2011) won the 2013 Grawe­mey­er Award. He is a for­mer Direc­tor Gen­er­al of the Cen­tre for Inter­na­tion­al Mobil­i­ty and Coop­er­a­tion in Helsin­ki and cur­rent­ly a vis­it­ing Pro­fes­sor of Prac­tice at Har­vard University’s Grad­u­ate School of Edu­ca­tion.

EVENT DETAILS:

WHAT:   OISE presents the R.W.B. Jack­son Lec­ture: Why the qual­i­ty of Finland’s edu­ca­tion sys­tem can exceed the qual­i­ty of its teach­ers

WHEN:   Thurs­day, April 17, 2014 at 7 p.m.

Live web­cast: https://webcasts.welcome2theshow.com/OISE

WHERE: Isabel Bad­er The­atre, 92 St. Charles Street West, Toron­to

For more infor­ma­tion and to reserve a seat, please con­tact: Steve Robin­son at 416–978-0008 or 647–515-8752 or U of T Media Rela­tions at 416–978-0100. RSVP by Tues­day, April 15, 2014

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Strate­gic Com­mu­ni­ca­tions
Ontario Insti­tute for Stud­ies in Edu­ca­tion
Uni­ver­si­ty of Toron­to
252 Bloor St W, Toron­to ON
M5S 1V6
Web­site: www.oise.utoronto.ca
Twit­ter: @OISENews
Face­book: OISE/UofT