In a modern school on the outskirts of Helsinki, a group of 10- and 11-year-old girls have left their classroom to play computer games.

The girls sit tapping their tablets - they are using an app that enables them to play a tune by pressing simulated rain-drops as they fall down the screen. Their teacher, Tapani Saarinen, walks between different groups of children who are sitting in the coffee shop-style seating areas in the corridor.

Saarinen’s lesson at Viikki Teacher Training School demonstrates one of Finland’s most famous long-standing educational traditions: teacher autonomy.

But, after nearly two decades as a high-flyer in the international league tables, the country’s education system is undergoing significant change: Finland is overhauling its core curriculum and providing greater direction over not only what is taught in schools - but also how it is taught.

After nearly two decades as a high-flyer in the international league tables, the country’s education system is undergoing significant change

Saarinen’s lesson reflects these changes by incorporating what has been branded the “digital leap” - putting technology at the centre of teaching. The changes also involve promoting cross-curricular skills such as ICT, and more physical activity.

But how does Finland manage to square its huge push to use more technology in teaching with its commitment to allowing teachers to decide how to teach?

After all, the option of whether to teach digital technology will no longer be left to teachers. Under the country’s new core curriculum, which was introduced in 2014 and incorporated into schools’ curricula in August 2016, ICT competence - including programming - has to be taught within all subjects for all age groups.

There is also a requirement for teachers to make greater use of computer games and interactive technology, such as virtual reality.

However, there is still room for teacher autonomy, Saarinen explains: “As a scholar and a teacher, you have to research many applications yourself. You have to look at what is going on in the market, and test it yourself to see what good it will be for your class.”

He shares his findings with colleagues, but they are free to take a different path. And the school’s headteacher is happy to trust Saarinen; there are no Ofsted-style external inspections, reflecting that famed Finnish freedom.

High-status profession

Teaching in Finland is a high status, much sought-after job; in September 2016, the University of Helsinki had 1,800 applicants for 120 teacher-training places. The autonomy of Finnish teachers is one of the reasons why the profession has such a high status in the country, according to the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD), which runs the Programme for International Student Assessment (Pisa) study.

Threaten that autonomy and - some would say - you endanger the status of teaching. That, in turn, would endanger the appeal of taking the demanding (albeit free) five-year masters’ degree which qualifies you to teach. Could that affect the supply of trainees or the quantity and quality of the teaching workforce?

It is important to note that this is a workforce that has produced some of the best educated 15-year-olds in the world. The Pisa rankings published late last year show that the country ranked fourth in reading, fifth in maths and 13th in science.

Of course, there are already some limits to how autonomous the system is - the government can insist on which subjects are taught, and for how many hours. And the government says that the high-stakes matriculation exam taken at age 19 will be changed to an entirely computer-based examination by 2019, something that will focus teachers’ attention on ICT.

But embedding a more ambitious vision of the curriculum in everyday practice cannot be insisted upon; it is believed that this will involve tapping into what motivates and enthuses all teachers - discovering ways to help children learn.

“If you asked people many years ago why they were applying for teacher training, a typical answer would be because they like kids and enjoy the long summer holidays,” Patrik Scheinin, dean of the university’s teacher education department says. “Now they know they are going to work hard, put some effort in and learn to do research.”

To enthuse Finnish teachers, the “digital leap” has been firmly based in research in psychology and neuroscience into how people learn. And there is a clear shift from what has happened in the past - using the same pedagogy just with added digital apps and devices - to putting pedagogy first, and then looking for ways to support this with technology.

But the changes currently working their way through the Finnish education system are not just about shiny, new technology. From now on, there will be a greater drive for children to get out of their classrooms - into nature, museums or even businesses. One hour of physical activity will be required every day and one multidisciplinary module every year.

Still, the question of how all this is included will be left up to schools, meaning that much is resting on the continued success of Finland’s education system. It is a big responsibility, and comes against a backdrop of huge funding cuts.

While the government has set aside a total of €300 million (£260 million) for specific projects within education, over the past few years there have been serious economic problems in Finland.

Unemployment is rising and government spending is high. The crisis is such that last year, a “competitiveness pact” agreed with the unions included measures such as government employees working 24 hours longer annually for the same wages.

And that was agreed after the government rowed back on plans to cancel two bank holidays and cut sick pay and holidays for state workers.

In the past 10 years, financial pressures have caused more than 550 comprehensives to close - almost one in four. And a 2016 European Commission monitoring report points out that the proportion of government spending on education in the country has declined markedly in real terms since 2011. Expenditure on upper secondary education was cut by 4 per cent in 2013.

Even Angel Gurria, the secretary-general of the OECD, warned the Finnish prime minister that his government’s education cuts were worrying. “You can’t cut too much and for too many years in a row,” he was reported as saying by Yle, the Finnish broadcasting company, in 2015.

Pisa fear

It is Pisa that focused the world’s attention on Finland - but it has been somewhat of a double-edged sword for the country.

“Finland has done little to improve its schools since the first Pisa results were released in 2001,” writes Pasi Sahlberg, author and education adviser, in his book Finnish Lessons.

“The huge flow of foreigners from all over the world who come to visit the remarkably successful Finnish schools have made the authorities afraid to change anything.”

Results in the global league table have slid slightly since then. The country is still one of the world’s top performers, but there is an acknowledgement that this downward trend needs to be addressed.

The huge flow of foreigners from all over the world who come to visit the remarkably successful Finnish schools have made the authorities afraid to change anything

Olli-Pekka Heinonen, director-general of the Finnish National Agency for Education, described the “slight negative trend” in the 2015 Pisa results as “a kind of alarm” - a warning that the system must develop.

But the country is developing according to its own agenda. Of course, educationalists from Finland have been to Shanghai - the city which topped the reading, maths and science Pisa rankings in 2012.

“But the culture is so different [in Shanghai],” explains Heinonen. “We want to see what these countries are doing, but at the same time, there aren’t that many solutions from those countries.”

It may not provide solutions for Finland, but Pisa has been helpful in identifying problems. In 2012, Pisa revealed that Finnish students ranked 60th out of 65 countries for how much they liked school - and it is hoped that the new forms of digital participation in schools will engage these stressed students.

And in Pisa 2015, Finland was the only country where girls did better than boys in science. Girls also do better than boys in maths, and the gap in reading is one of the largest in the world. It is hoped that boys will be helped to catch up under the move to introduce an annual multidisciplinary module also known as “phenomenon-based learning” - a student-led approach where pupils learn by observing real-life scenarios.

‘It’s not a problem, it’s a challenge’

In another classroom at Viikki school, the children who were learning music in the corridor are now learning about the “odd” British custom of putting vinegar on chips, in their English class.

Martti Mery, their English teacher, is optimistic - in a typically Finnish fashion - about the changes coming his way. He points out that his subject is perhaps the easiest to include in the new phenomenon-based learning projects: “It’s not a problem. It’s a good idea. It is a challenge for the teachers, but for the pupils it will be an advantage, for sure.

It’s not a problem. It’s a good idea. It is a challenge for the teachers, but for the pupils it will be an advantage, for sure

“The changes are not that big. Teachers are going to do it according to their own wishes - in a few years it will be the new normal. They would want it to be a big change, but in the world of schools, things always happen slowly. It will take time for the changes to happen.”

And this is both the country’s strength and its weakness. In Finland, changes to the education system are made through the social consensus that has evolved between government, academia, quangos and teachers. This slow-and-steady approach has paid off so far, but it takes a massive effort and is time-consuming, while the economic and social challenges created by the technological revolution are rapid.

The last core curriculum lasted from 2004 - the year Facebook was founded - until 2014, by which time Facebook had more than 1 billion users. The new core curriculum will be in place until 2024, which is some gamble and one that could be threatened by the pace of technological and societal change.

“Every 10 years, we build up the process through which the core curriculum is renewed,” says Heinonen. “But if I have to bet today what will happen. I don’t think it will take another 10 years. I think it will happen sooner.”

@teshelen