The Finnish Report Card

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Finland has largely remade itself over the last 35 years, revamping its education system, transforming its medical care structure, and creating a new high-tech sector that - thanks to cellphone manufacturer Nokia - has become an international player.
      Today Finland is regularly cited as among the world's best in a variety of indexes and comparisons. For example:
     
- The World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, ranks Finland's the most competitive economy in the world.
     
- Yale and Columbia universities rank the nations of the world in a "sustainability index" that measures a country's ability to "protect the natural environment over the next several decades." Finland ranks first.
     
- Statistics kept by the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development show that Finland invests more of its gross domestic product in research and development than any country but Sweden.
     
- Finnish 15-year-olds score first in the industrial world on comparative tests of their academic abilities.
     
- According to a global survey by Transparency International, Finland is perceived as the least corrupt country in the world (The United States is tied for 17th).
     
- Finns read newspapers and take books out of libraries at rates as high or higher than all other countries.
     
- Finland trains more musicians, per capita, than any other country.
     
© 2005, Robert G. Kaiser, The Washington Post

More on this subject:
 "Why can't we Americans be more like Finland?"

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