Ireland Vs Finland

daithicarr

Ever since a Finish friend told me how expensive childcare was in Finland ( 500 euro for two children for the month), Ive often being comparing what we do as a nation to what they do. And I would struggle to find something we manage or do better .

They are a good comparison as they are a sparsely populated country on the periphery or Europe.

They manage to have the best education system in the world for less spending per capita than us.

This year they were ranked 3rd most competitive country in the world where we were 27.

It goes without saying their health system is far better with ours, something like 80%+ of Finns are happy with the health care provided. Id imagine if you knocked a 0 off that you'd be closer to our level of sanctification.

Energy costs are along with France lowest in Europe. etc, etc,

Should we not be trying to emulate a country like them rather than our current model, which is very clearly not producing great results.

paul71

Birth rate Ireland 16.2 per 1000
Birth rate Finland 10.8 per 1000

It always seem to be ignored in comparsions of childcare costs with other countries that we have Europes highest birthrate when in fact it is the most important point in the discussion.

Godge

Well, for once, at least we are not being asked to copy Iceland.

Jawgap

paul71 wrote: »

Birth rate Ireland 16.2 per 1000
Birth rate Finland 10.8 per 1000

It always seem to be ignored in comparsions of childcare costs with other countries that we have Europes highest birthrate when in fact it is the most important point in the discussion.

I'm not sure how that makes childcare more expensive - I would have thought more kids, means more childcare and potentially larger facilities, more competition, cheaper training for childcare workers - which should drive prices down.

To re-hash a quote I once heard about the Netherlands when it was being compared to Ireland - the reason Finland (or the Netherlands) fares better than Ireland is because it's full of Finns.

daithicarr

I think the fact there is no state support is a very important point. If we had a proper provision it could well be argued that we would have a even higher birthrate. all future tax payers.

As it is despite having one of the highest birthrates in Europe we still have below replacement fertility rates , the current boom is due to a bulge in those of child baring age, not a increase in fertility rates.

A proper provision or support would mean less of a burden on young family's and would enable those on social welfare or low pay scales to re-enter/ stay within the work force.

It could also incorporate some form of early childhood education , which would be a great asset. rather than the current system where your children are in many cases just minded for a large sum of money.

daithicarr

Jawgap wrote: »

the reason Finland (or the Netherlands) fares better than Ireland is because it's full of Finns.

Thats the sort of defeatist attitude that results in little change, that we are somehow inherently incapable of managing things effectively, so there is no point trying.

Jawgap

daithicarr wrote: »

Thats the sort of defeatist attitude that results in little change, that we are somehow inherently incapable of managing things effectively, so there is no point trying.

It's not being defeatist - it's being pragmatic.

Irish society is incredibly individualistic - people are out to get what they can for themselves and their localities - that's not defeatist, that's just the way it is.

Rather than trying to turn the Irish into Finns or import the Finnish or Nordic model of society, I think you have to work within the confines of the prevailing widely held attitudes to work with and around them rather than grossly change them.

.....and when I figure out the most efficient way to do that, I'll let everyone know!

Jonny7

Do they have thousands of families living off social welfare for generations?

Godge

Jawgap wrote: »

I'm not sure how that makes childcare more expensive - I would have thought more kids, means more childcare and potentially larger facilities, more competition, cheaper training for childcare workers - which should drive prices down.

To re-hash a quote I once heard about the Netherlands when it was being compared to Ireland - the reason Finland (or the Netherlands) fares better than Ireland is because it's full of Finns.

No, the biggest factors in childcare costs are the requirements for X amount of space and Y number of childminders per child.

If one country requires two childminders for every six children but the other allows two childminders for every twelve children, there will be a difference in cost no matter what.

daithicarr

Not suggesting we turn the people in to Finns or swedes etc, just implement form of good government, by which they provide and example .

We already have the core notions of a universal health care and social welfare, free education etc, but we implement it badly . We can take tips from a nation like them who match our profile better than larger nations like the US or the UK, who have much bigger populations etc.

There is many factors which can contribute to health care costs, such as no tax rebate on the costs, creches run fro profit rather than for social good, like a normal school. no real government support , no planning of facility's to ensure best economics are achieved. and probably many more i cant think of at this moment in time. But as usual we are at the wrong end of the scale

http://www.guardian.co.uk/news/datablog/2012/may/21/child-care-costs-compared-britain

WE might not be Switzerland or the UK, but not being the very worst at any one thing is hardly much of an achievement.

paul71

Jawgap wrote: »

I'm not sure how that makes childcare more expensive - I would have thought more kids, means more childcare and potentially larger facilities, more competition, cheaper training for childcare workers - which should drive prices down.

To re-hash a quote I once heard about the Netherlands when it was being compared to Ireland - the reason Finland (or the Netherlands) fares better than Ireland is because it's full of Finns.

It makes it more expensive because the subsidy required to be paid per each taxpayer would be higher then that paid by each Finnish taxpayer. Don't be fooled by the misnomer that childcare costs less in other European countries, it does not cost less, it costs about the same, the difference is that a proportion of the cost is bourne by the taxpayer not the parents, so people without children pay a portion of the cost of providing the service.

I am not arguing that this should not be the case in Ireland, but we should be aware that in order to provide services of a similar quality as those provided elsewhere in Europe we would need to pay 50% more tax to be allocated to childcare subsidies as compared to those countries because we have 50% more children. Given the current envirionment I cannot see how that would be possible.

In reality we need to look at the reasons for the high cost of providing childcare instead of just thinking about the fee paid by parents or the lack of state subsidy.

The costs involved are wages, rent and insurance. Since childcare workers are generally poorly paid there seems to be little scope there, but rent and insurance could certainly be tackled. I would suggest that in the long term cheches holding leases should allow them to expire and facilities be provided from the NAMA property bank at controlled rents and that an insurance scheme with a claims resolution board be provided for by the state.

who_me

A colleague of mine lives in the Netherlands, and pays far higher tax here than we do here (don't know his exact salary, but it would be quite high). He, however, doesn't have much problem with it, as he gets a lot in return, including very cheap subsidised childcare.

I know it's sounds logical that "high earners shouldn't get any benefits" and "low earners shouldn't pay any tax", but I think that creates a divisive, individualistic society. You're splitting the nation right down the middle.

Given our current debt though, I don't know if we have any other option.

daithicarr

Yes it is foolish to think it costs much less for the nation as a whole once you remove any inefficiency's , i suppose the question is do we want to share the burden of a service as a nation or continue to have the access to a valuable social service determined on individual levels of wealth.

paul71

daithicarr wrote: »

Yes it is foolish to think it costs much less for the nation as a whole once you remove any inefficiency's , i suppose the question is do we want to share the burden of a service as a nation or continue to have the access to a valuable social service determined on individual levels of wealth.

Or look at new models that other countries have not yet considered. Co-operative societies spring to mind with state support. Some of the most successful ventures in the history of this state were the Agricultural co-ops set up in the 1920s and 1930s.

I dont see why with facilities owned by the state and rented to local parental groups those parental groups could not hire a manager and staff to run facilities and run the venture as a business. Ownership could be based on a shareholding with 1 share for each child attending the facility and a controlling shareholding held by a central statutory and regulatory authority perhaps the HSE, when a child moves on to school the shareholding moves to the family of a new child.

Naturally there would still be a fully private sector running alongside this framework. It is just an idea that I formed over the last few months because of the recent controversies and the lack of available finance to provide a credible state run service.

sarkozy

Denmark is another comparitor country for Ireland - similar geography/climate, population and occupying a space somewhere between the nordic and anglo-saxon worlds.

Years ago, I conducted research into the childcare systems of Europe as part of an overall project to make proposals on bringing real local government and local democracy to Ireland.

I'd never thought of it before, but I found myself becoming very passionate about the childcare issue. Despite the evidence, successive Irish governments and tax payers have refused to see it as an investment in a better Ireland. For example, based on a longitudinal study from the US, the Irish National Economic and Social Council produced a lengthy proposal for subsidised childcare which predicted that for every 1 euro invested, over each child's lifetime, there would be a return of between 4-7 euro. This saving has now been revised to 9 euro.

The reason? Better social, educational and health outcomes for children - they get to live in families with higher and more stable income, single parents can escape poverty traps, and we save on down-the-line health bills, higher incomes leading to higher government revenue, and less expense on crime and punishment.

Before this work, I spent some time in Finland and couldn't get over how well it worked. They even planned ahead for the future. While the city of Helsinki built a second station below their central subway terminal when the first one was built in the 1970s just in case the system was expanded later, we didn't even link up the Luas lines.

Back to childcare: our government's approach has been to transfer massive tax payer's money to construction industry to build creche facilities but basically to stop there and let 'the market' take over (on the assumption that competition among private companies will bring costs down), and this theory has failed. This has led to sub-standard and highly expensive childcare (also creating poverty traps) which is not truly governed by any real policy and regulatory system and is not adequately resourced.

Through this, we're actually de-investing in our children's and society's future.

But we can fix this.

In Finland and Denmark, when things got tough, their approach has been to deal with the problem and making decisions about what kind of society they want and doing something about it. They cracked it. They realised it's all about the life cycle - the golden thread that links young and old, men and women together from birth to death.

And what it is is an investment in all our futures. Sure, if we don't invest in our children's care now, who's going to look after us when we're elderly?

oscarBravo

sarkozy wrote: »

But we can fix this.

In Finland and Denmark, when things got tough, their approach has been to deal with the problem and making decisions about what kind of society they want and doing something about it.

Sure, but - at the risk of being pounced on for being somehow racist against my own country - Finns and Danes are, quite simply, different people from the Irish. A case in point is the last Danish general election, which was won by the party whose manifesto promised to raise taxes.

When it's even remotely conceivable that that could happen here, we'll be on the road to achieving the sort of society that Scandinavians take for granted, but as long as we want to have world-class services that someone else has to pay for, we'll be disappointed.

sarkozy

I think what you're saying - rather than using 'essentialist' language - is due to the combination of history, politics and cultural 'habitus', Scandinavian and Finnish societies are more collectivist in nature. I would say this is, in part, due to their geography and climate, and the nature of their transition from agrarian to modern, industrialised countries. Remember, along that route, those countries experienced intense famine and economic boom/bust cycles. I would also suggest two additional factors are religion (generally Lutheran) and that two of the Scandinavian countries were colonial powers.

BUT: the nordic countries were, relative to the rest of Europe in the 1800s/1900s, poor, backward countries, where any public resources had to be very judiciously allocated. A visit to, for example, the Finnish national history museum is fascinating in this regard. Finland was also colonised twice - first by the Swedes, then by the Russians. Ireland, as a similarly poor and agrarian society, was also collectivist in nature, colonised and nationally poor. My own Dad tells me about the way of things in Leitrim well into the 1960s.

And, with the exception of Finland, Ireland shares a direct and indirect anglo-saxon heritage with Scandinavian countries over centuries.

So, my response to this claim is that, while we cannot break with our own history, societies are dynamic and the lesson from these societies is that, when the sh*t hits the fan, political and social contours can shift, and societies can make decisions about what future they want and can make it a reality. These countries, too, have had limited resources to do that. But they've done it.

I tend to feel that Irish people are, basically, infected with a contagious form of fatalism when European history demonstrates this is far from the reality and far from what we should accept.

dsmythy

People talk a lot about the Finnish education system while leaving out a rather obvious fact. To be a teacher in Finland, even at primary school level you need a masters degree and as such they are paid a wage and respect a professional should receive.

Einhard

These countries all have much higher taxes than Ireland. We can't even introduce a water charge without people frothing at the mouth in outrage.

Justin1982

dsmythy wrote: »

People talk a lot about the Finnish education system while leaving out a rather obvious fact. To be a teacher in Finland, even at primary school level you need a masters degree and as such they are paid a wage and respect a professional should receive.

You dont need a Masters degree to teach 5 and 6 year olds how to count to 100, tie their shoe laces and learn the alphabet. You just need a person with the right attitude, small amount of training on teaching methods and a tiny winy bit of cop on :rolleyes:

Having teachers with superdy dupperdy master degrees requires years of training and then they expect massive salaries because they sat around on their bottoms for a few years. Thats just not the most efficient way to educate teachers that could then educate children.

When I finished my leaving cert ten years ago, having got an A1 in maths, I feel I was perfectly placed to become a maths teacher straight away. I would have done a much better job than all the "qualified" lazy ass useless teachers that I had in my school who didnt give two ducks about educating any student. As it turned out I did a maths degree in Trinity. If anything I was in less of a position to teach leaving cert maths by the end of it as during the four years in college we never touched on a lot of the Leaving Cert maths elements so I had forgotten a lot of it.

nesf

Justin1982 wrote: »

When I finished my leaving cert ten years ago, having got an A1 in maths, I feel I was perfectly placed to become a maths teacher straight away.

A thousand times no. Just because you can sit an exam and do well does not mean you're going to be good at teaching other people to sit it. You'd also have only a shallow understanding of the topics, if you did a heavily mathematical topic in college you know what I mean here.

Justin1982

nesf wrote: »

A thousand times no. Just because you can sit an exam and do well does not mean you're going to be good at teaching other people to sit it. You'd also have only a shallow understanding of the topics, if you did a heavily mathematical topic in college you know what I mean here.

Why do you think that an A1 maths student who could answer all questions in the leaving cert maths paper only has a shallow understanding of the topics? I probably had forgotten a lot of the LC Maths topics finer details by the time I qualified with a degree in Theoretical Physics four years later and I was not a better teacher. If anything I had lost a lot of the communication skills I had after my leaving cert.

I assure you that your not going to be able to convince me that I could have done a worse job teaching leaving cert maths compared to a large proportion of the qualified teachers that I had and which a lot of kids still have to endure in todays secondary schools.

When it comes to teaching leaving cert maths to students who are studying for their leaving cert, having an indept knowledge of advanced mathematics like Tensors, Advanced Statistics, Programing, Logic or whatever else is largely irrelevant to those students and mainly of no interest to them. And maths graduates coming out of college with a maths degree (in some instances) have a good overview of mathematics generally but they probably dont have a clue how that maths is used in the real world. Yet they are qualified to teach maths. Its kind of overkill.

You either have the ability to teach properly or you dont. Its largely down to your personality rather than a piece of paper that says you are qualified.

Jawgap

Einhard wrote: »

These countries all have much higher taxes than Ireland. We can't even introduce a water charge without people frothing at the mouth in outrage.

I wouldn't mind paying more taxes, I wouldn't mind paying my property taxes and I wouldn't mind paying my water tax, if I got something in return.....

....but we won't. In the case of the water tax our water quality is relatively poor compared to, for example, the UK - do you think now we are paying for our water there will be a significant improvement in drinking and bathing water quality?

Will the government go down the same route as the UK and require Irish Water to provide refunds, or refuse price increases, if they fail to hit quality or leak prevention targets?

It's exactly like the property tax - we're paying over the money for no increase or improvement in services or concessions in other parts of the taxation system.

sarkozy

Justin1982 wrote: »

You dont need a Masters degree to teach 5 and 6 year olds how to count to 100, tie their shoe laces and learn the alphabet. You just need a person with the right attitude, small amount of training on teaching methods and a tiny winy bit of cop on :rolleyes:

Having teachers with superdy dupperdy master degrees requires years of training and then they expect massive salaries because they sat around on their bottoms for a few years. Thats just not the most efficient way to educate teachers that could then educate children.

When I finished my leaving cert ten years ago, having got an A1 in maths, I feel I was perfectly placed to become a maths teacher straight away. I would have done a much better job than all the "qualified" lazy ass useless teachers that I had in my school who didnt give two ducks about educating any student. As it turned out I did a maths degree in Trinity. If anything I was in less of a position to teach leaving cert maths by the end of it as during the four years in college we never touched on a lot of the Leaving Cert maths elements so I had forgotten a lot of it.

Teaching entails a lot more than imparting information learned in school/university to children. Good teaching requires expert, skilled grasp of teaching/pedagogical methods, child development, psychology, etc., which is high involved and requires high quality education and training. And teaching the old fashioned way, as you describe, is simply obsolete and has been superceded.

And one of the main points you're overlooking here is that Finnish teachers, in addition to having higher training and higher remuneration and higher social respect, are held by the authorities to higher standards. They are properly accountable, unlike many of our teachers, and this maintains the quality of education provided.

jmayo

Jawgap wrote: »

I'm not sure how that makes childcare more expensive - I would have thought more kids, means more childcare and potentially larger facilities, more competition, cheaper training for childcare workers - which should drive prices down.

To re-hash a quote I once heard about the Netherlands when it was being compared to Ireland - the reason Finland (or the Netherlands) fares better than Ireland is because it's full of Finns.

I was going to say the exact same thing.

daithicarr wrote: »

Thats the sort of defeatist attitude that results in little change, that we are somehow inherently incapable of managing things effectively, so there is no point trying.

Ehh have you ever been to Finland ?
As a nation or a group of people they are not like us.
As basic example of how different we are, I have watched people standing at pedestrian crossing on empty Helsinki street waiting for the lights.
(and yes I know it is similar in some other countries)
And these were people that were in a rush.
You see they follow rules and they think of the greater good.
Here lots of people think they should get one over the rest and consider those that do someone to be lauded.
Of course we don't want them pulling the p*** by going overboard or we don't like ones that go about it arrogantly.

daithicarr wrote: »

Not suggesting we turn the people in to Finns or swedes etc, just implement form of good government, by which they provide and example .

I don't think you can have a similar system when you have very different people with a much different outlook.

daithicarr wrote: »

We already have the core notions of a universal health care and social welfare, free education etc, but we implement it badly . We can take tips from a nation like them who match our profile better than larger nations like the US or the UK, who have much bigger populations etc.

Why don't you compare the salaries of the professionals that work in healthcare and education in the two countries.
Then you can see where all the money we spend actually goes.

daithicarr wrote: »

There is many factors which can contribute to health care costs, such as no tax rebate on the costs, creches run fro profit rather than for social good, like a normal school. no real government support , no planning of facility's to ensure best economics are achieved. and probably many more i cant think of at this moment in time. But as usual we are at the wrong end of the scale

http://www.guardian.co.uk/news/datablog/2012/may/21/child-care-costs-compared-britain

WE might not be Switzerland or the UK, but not being the very worst at any one thing is hardly much of an achievement.

But you don't get it, we are happy with being somewhere in the middle.
If you lambast Ireland's standing, someone will immediately pipe up and compare us to Malawi if it is in terms of education/health or Italy if it is in terms of poor governance.
Most people don't look at what is at the top since they think they have had to make too many sacrifices to get there.

Maybe roy keane was right you know.
We are happy to do alright and make a bit of a splash, but we can't be bothered going the extra mile to be the best.

After the debacle that was Ireland's performance in Poland any other country's fans would have run out the powers that be and the geriatric manager.
Here we just shrugged our shoulders, complained a bit and then meekly trotted off to buy more tickets.
That is mirrored throughout society.
If we were bothered about our young, our sick and elderly ahern would have been hounded from office before he got a chance to wreck the country.

Godge

Justin1982 wrote: »

Why do you think that an A1 maths student who could answer all questions in the leaving cert maths paper only has a shallow understanding of the topics? I probably had forgotten a lot of the LC Maths topics finer details by the time I qualified with a degree in Theoretical Physics four years later and I was not a better teacher. If anything I had lost a lot of the communication skills I had after my leaving cert.

I assure you that your not going to be able to convince me that I could have done a worse job teaching leaving cert maths compared to a large proportion of the qualified teachers that I had and which a lot of kids still have to endure in todays secondary schools.

When it comes to teaching leaving cert maths to students who are studying for their leaving cert, having an indept knowledge of advanced mathematics like Tensors, Advanced Statistics, Programing, Logic or whatever else is largely irrelevant to those students and mainly of no interest to them. And maths graduates coming out of college with a maths degree (in some instances) have a good overview of mathematics generally but they probably dont have a clue how that maths is used in the real world. Yet they are qualified to teach maths. Its kind of overkill.

You either have the ability to teach properly or you dont. Its largely down to your personality rather than a piece of paper that says you are qualified.

This discussion is going way off-topic but I would point out that the H.Dip is going to two years full-time on top of an honours degree, primary teaching is already three years full-time so you need a little bit more than Leaving Cert maths to be able to teach it. You might get away with a one-to-one grinds situation but in no way could you teach a class of 25 the full curicculum over two years.

Also, teaching maths or any other subject is more than being able to pass the exam.

daithicarr

jmayo wrote: »

Ehh have you ever been to Finland ?
.

I have, and i know a good few Finnish people, and we are not so drastically different from them that we would be incapable of at least trying to adopt ideas which have been successfully implemented by the Finns or other such country's.

It seems that your suggesting that we shouldn't even try and make any change as we are inherently inferior as a people and incapable of change.This just seems to me as a manifestation of the Irish colonialist inferiority complex , which probably does more to infringe progress than any natural ability or lack of.

jmayo wrote: »

Why don't you compare the salaries of the professionals that work in healthcare and education in the two countries.
Then you can see where all the money we spend actually goes.
.

Eh that's part of my point. they spend less on it and get better results.

It seems to me your suggesting that if at first we don't succeed, just give up and be content with what you have.

daithicarr

dsmythy wrote: »

People talk a lot about the Finnish education system while leaving out a rather obvious fact. To be a teacher in Finland, even at primary school level you need a masters degree and as such they are paid a wage and respect a professional should receive.

Teachers in Finland earn less than they do here.

nice_guy80

I'm just back from Finland

can all of their women be exported over here?
best looking females I have seen EVER (except maybe Tallinn, or Stockholm!)