In recent decades, it has long been known that humanitarian immigration has had harmful effects on Western societies. For example, the link between immigration and increased gang, drug, and sexual crime is quite clear (example, another).
Less has been said about other impacts of people from developing countries on Western nations. In Finland’s case, however, this is one of the reasons why, according to PISA tests, the country’s school system is no longer anywhere near the best in the world.
The matter was written about by a local Helsinki newspaper, which interviewed Ulla Talvensaari, who has worked as a primary school teacher for 25 years. To understand her views, my esteemed reader must know that in many Helsinki schools, the proportion of pupils with an immigrant background can exceed half of the student body.
According to the experienced teacher, insufficient Finnish language instruction for pupils with an immigrant background threatens to weaken the entire education system, from primary school to vocational studies. This is reflected in the fact that “today only the sharpest quarter of pupils can manage tasks that, at the start of my career around the turn of the millennium, were routine for the majority.”
This has led to a situation where “secondary school teachers wonder why children with such weak skills have been allowed to pass through primary school to higher levels. In vocational studies, people then question secondary school assessments. Eventually, in vocational schools, standards are lowered and incompetence becomes a burden for working life.”
Schools also do not take immigrant pupils’ lack of competence seriously, but instead “it is now difficult for a teacher to hold anyone back a grade or to give conditional passes. Many teachers end up lowering standards just to get everyone through the system.” In this way, they avoid being branded as racists for prolonging immigrant pupils’ time at school.
Thus, the teacher raises the question: “Is it really equality if there are huge gaps in skill levels within classrooms? We used to talk about the Gaussian curve. Most pupils were average, with only a small number being particularly weak or highly gifted. Now the middle group has almost disappeared, and classrooms consist mostly of extremes—either capable pupils or those with major learning challenges.”
As one way to improve the situation, the teacher also calls for more parental responsibility. In her view, “we [Finns] should demand that immigrant parents also practice Finnish regularly at home with their children.”
One can only hope that this teacher will be listened to both in Finland and elsewhere in Europe, and that society will abandon woke dogmas and instead uphold children’s right to learn at school—including those with immigrant backgrounds. This should remain the case even if their learning takes longer than that of the native population’s children.
I don't know about other countries, but in Finland, children are not required to do enough in comprehensive school. Homework is not necessarily given at all, so that the student's "motivation" for schooling is maintained.
ReplyDeleteHow do children learn things if they don't practice at home (i.e. do homework) what has been taught in school?
Adults no longer have to take responsibility for themselves, because Finland has social security. This applies especially to asylum seekers, who are in reality refugees from the living conditions and many of whom are, at least in Finland, Muslims.
Finns should wake up and realize that this cannot continue. The state's money is running out.
It was a big disappointment for the lefties that the Soviet Union crumbled. They got an idea:"Lets bring in a lot of people from the 3rd world countries so the West will also crumble down."
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