This morning's lesson—ancient history.

Well, they are reading with pairs, some texts about Egypt and ancient life.

They are reading and then I'm going to ask something, what did they find out from the book.

I think we all are ready now.

This is a school system that for years has been among the world's best.

And then what about this gold one?

And yet these kids will spend half as much time in a classroom as Australian children.

When you go to the first grade, when you are seven years old, the amount of hours is 20 hours a week.

It's the minimum and then it gets more hours the older you get.

But it's still less than in many countries in Europe or in the world.

In Finland, it's individual teachers who decide how the curriculum is taught, including how much technology should feature in their classrooms.

We're working on a pyramid project, for example.

We're now writing our names on paper with hieroglyphics and then we'll be doing some tasks from classroom.

Eleven-year-old, Mintu Latimarki, asks to leave class to work at the school's own student-run cafe.

You can go.

Yeah, that's okay.

Hello.

One cake for the cameraman, one cake for me, and two coffees.

How much is it?

Two euros and 60 cents.

How much change?

Two euros and 40 cents.

Is there a tip jar?

Do you have tips?

No.

No tips? Okay.

In Finland, school lunches, like books and excursions, are free.

The kids select what they want, sit down with their friends and teachers to eat, before they clean up after themselves.

The children rug up again to play outside.

Some play a raucous version of soccer, some play basketball while others wait for the hockey rink to open.

There are plenty of options for bad weather days too.

The facilities in this school are just amazing.

Outside we saw an ice skating rink and in here where the kids can play at lunchtime, there's a ping-pong table, a pool table.

And in here, for the cold winter days, they've got a room full of bean bags and couches and there's even a PlayStation in the corner.

It seems like it's such a rich school, you must get more money than other schools?

No, we don't.

It's the same money for everyone actually.

In Finland, schools are not allowed to raise private funds or to charge fees from parents.

All schools are equitably funded from taxation.

And in our system everything is free for the students actually.

We don't collect any money from the parents.

We want our schools to be equal and have equal opportunities to arrange the education.

So, therefore, also the finance system needs to be equal and treat equally all the schools.

Mintu Latimarki's older brother, Levi, is in year seven and this afternoon he's got maths.

We have, like the last term, chapter before we have the next exam.

There are regular exams in Finland but the results of these tests are not published and shared.

We have a national test but the big difference is we don't compare schools that this is not a good school, this is a bad school.

We just use the information that we evaluate ourselves.

But perhaps the single biggest difference in Finnish education is the standard of teaching.

Levi's maths teacher, Oona Arnez, speaks five languages and has postgraduate qualifications.

So every one of us, we have to have a master's degree to be teachers.

So like, for example, me, I'm maths and chemistry and physics teacher.

In Finland, a career as a teacher is highly sought after.

To enter the studies in university actually it's really hard.

They take something like 10 percent to study teaching.

If you really want to be a teacher, it can't be your second or third or I don't know what kind of option.

It has to be your first.

I believe that they know what is the best for our children.

I'm not a teacher, I don't have that education.

So we don't interfere with their work.

In Finland, there's little anxiety about finding the right school for your child.

We trust that they have very good school so we don't need to do any research work.

- I think that is not a question in Finland. - No, no.

Finland is a vastly different country with a tiny homogenous society.

But its education success must surely offer some lessons for Australia.

I would like to say that try to build the system that you trust the people.

And its investment in teachers seems an obvious place to begin.

The society respects the teachers and it means also the parents respect the teachers and they don't question the teachers.

And that's, in Finland that's a really huge thing.

Hi, I'm Leigh Sales.

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