Age of Indicators: Changes in the Finnish Education Policy Agenda

Abstract

Quality assurance and evaluation (QAE) have become a vital part of education governance, both globally and nationally. This article is an attempt to represent and analyse first, how the idea of education indicators has arrived, has been accepted and has been modified in Finland. Secondly, it describes what are the aims given and actions taken in developing national indicators by different actors. The article sketches the development of education indicators in Finland through two time periods of high adaptational pressure of Europeanisation. During the ‘short 1970s' ( c. 1970–76), the idea of social indicators was introduced for the very first time on the Finnish comprehensive education policy agenda. This first attempt faded away by the mid 1970s. However, the ‘long 1990s' reinvented the idea and it seems that this period, beginning from c. 1986, is still ongoing. Drawing on Börzel & Risse's thoughts, the authors explain the differences in these two decades mainly with the changes in ‘facilitating factors' and the duration of adaptational pressure.