The Director General believes the see-sawing results are due to different grading scales in use in the schools. Lankinen is proposing supplementary education for teachers and nationwide evaluation of students' learning results.
Last week several regional newspapers published statistics showing the average grades received by comprehensive school students on their final certificates.
The data showed that students' average results in one municipality were up to one and a half points higher than the results of students in others. When the results among schools were compared, the differences were even greater.
However results for upper secondary and vocational schools appeared to cross the boundaries of location. In such cases poorer results prevent aspirants from entering more prestigious upper secondary schools.
Lankinen wants to offer teachers supplementary training to ensure that students would be treated more equally. His other remedy for the problem of scattered school results would be nationwide testing outside of school-centred evaluation. Such testing would be conducted for an entire age group at certain intervals.
Peter Johnson, President of the Finnish Principals' Association says additional training would be welcomed, as long as someone can foot the bill.
He added that funds should be reserved for such training. However he pointed out that it would be necessary to identify the municipal share of the cost. "It means that funding has to be found for travelling, participation, replacement teachers," he explained.
The Association feels that nationwide testing would place an additional burden on teachers. "Currently such tests are random, and in some schools, teachers have already refused to grade them," Johnson adds.
He is opposed to the tests because he fears they would bias teaching, causing teachers to focus exclusively on areas related to the exams. He points out that in Finland in particular, teaching is based on applied and in-depth approaches.
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