With the so-called competency guarantee, Finland aims to ensure that no young person finishes basic school without sufficient reading, writing, and arithmetic skills. At the same time, it seeks to reduce assessment differences between schools and teachers.
From August 2028, Finland will extend national assessment criteria to every grade and subject. Until now, common criteria were set for separate educational stages, for example, grade 6 and final assessment. After the reform, each grade will define what a student must know to receive a 10, 8, or the lowest passing grade – 5. The 5 will become the minimum level required in all subjects to advance to the next grade.
Student progress will need to be monitored throughout the school year. If students do not reach the set level, they must first receive support tailored to their needs. The learning support system already operating in Finland stipulates that help is first provided in the classroom itself, and if necessary, more individualized measures are assigned to the child.
The option to repeat a grade will be considered an extreme measure and only considered if the provided support does not help. According to Laura Tilvytė, head of the organization “Education #1,” Finland’s decision is noteworthy because responsibility for the result is taken not only by the student but also by the school – it must timely notice difficulties and help overcome them.
“Finns do not lower expectations for students just because some find it hard to meet the bar. On the contrary – they clearly state what each child must know and just as clearly what the school must do so that everyone can reach that bar. If a child starts struggling, help must be provided as soon as difficulties are noticed, not after several years when learning gaps have already accumulated,” says L. Tilvytė.
The same grade should mean the same
In Lithuania, updated general education programs focus on competencies and student progress, but teachers still have to interpret achievement and assessment criteria quite broadly. Because of this, the same achievement level in different classes or schools is not necessarily understood the same way.
According to L. Tilvytė, it is not enough just to define achievement criteria more clearly – it is also important that different teachers similarly understand what one or another achievement level means.
“We can describe achievement levels in great detail, but if for the same work a student gets an 8 in one school and a 6 in another, a clear description alone will not suffice. Teachers need concrete examples and time to compare students’ work together with colleagues, discuss assessment, and check whether they would evaluate the same work similarly. Only then can we expect that the same grade in different schools will mean a similar result,” she says.
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A similar practice is applied in Ireland’s primary education. When assessing students’ work, teachers rely on so-called “quality features” – descriptions that show how weaker, average, or stronger work differs. The National Council for Curriculum and Assessment also provides examples of already assessed student work to help understand how these criteria look in practice. Teachers also discuss students’ work together in special meetings and coordinate their assessments.
According to L. Tilvytė, common criteria should not mean uniform teaching.
“The system should clearly state what the child must learn, while leaving the teacher the freedom to decide how to lead the child to that result. Equally important is that the child understands the assessment – not only sees the grade in the diary but knows what they already know, what is still missing, and what they need to do next. Then assessment not only records the result but also helps learning,” says L. Tilvytė.
Knowing what the child must learn is not enough
Clearer criteria solve only part of the problem. Lithuanian schools already collect a lot of information about student achievements, but data accumulated in different years and stages do not always merge into a consistent picture of the child’s progress. Therefore, we may know what level the student should have reached, but it is much harder to timely see when their results started to decline, what gaps recur, and whether the provided support helped.
According to L. Tilvytė, it is not enough to clearly define what the child must know – it is also necessary to agree on how we will monitor their progress.
“We can very clearly agree on what the child must know in fifth, seventh, or ninth grade, but if we do not see how they are doing between these points, criteria alone will change little. We must see where the gap appears, what support was given to the child, and whether it worked. If not – look for another way. Otherwise, the child simply moves to the next grade with the same gaps,” says L. Tilvytė.
Finland’s reform enshrines this principle nationally: student progress will be monitored throughout the school year, and if the set level is not reached, help must first be provided. This aims to ensure that no child finishes school without acquiring sufficient reading, writing, and arithmetic skills necessary for further learning and life.
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