THIS STORY WAS UPDATED
According to Helsingin Sanomat, Deputy Mayor for Education of Helsinki, Nasima Razmyar, believes that the best way to deal with inequality at Helsinki schools is by paying teachers a bigger salary. Ramyar has a good idea, but it does not even begin to deal with why there is so much inequality at some schools and why we are now hearing this suggestion from her.
“The differences are huge,” she was quoted as saying. “We have areas [in Helsinki] where 40% of families live on income support. Socio-economic differences are visible daily at schools.”
Razmyar said that a lot of work by teachers and principals at such schools deals with handling social problems.
While it is a good matter that Razmyar is trying to find solutions on how to deal with rising inequaility at Helsinki schools, her suggestion of paying teachers a higher salar fall short on addressing the real culprit, which is racism and social inequality in our society.
The City of Helsinki has many resources to deal with social inequality among youths, money is only one of many that will help alleviate the problem.
Imagine as well the attacks by anti-immigration politicians and parties against minority children on how they receive preferential treatment through better-paying teachers.
Even if such advocates may claim that immigration is costly, we can also argue that racism, discrimination, and social exclusion cost society.
Let’s hope that Razmyar and the City of Helsinki can come up with more effective solutions.
This is a good start but it is a disappointment because it subcontracts social ills to higher pay.
You are one broken record Enrique. Everything is racism and inequality.
The thing is, things are indeed inequal in that minority children give schools more money already. Apart from that, schools and teachers aren’t that different in Finland. The difference are the students themselves. The problem isn’t that students come from poor families, the problem is that students don’t want to study and disturb the teachers and others. The problem is that students and their parents don’t value education.