The long and winding road

About a week ago the Atlantic published an article about Finnish school system. The article highlighted that the goal of the Finnish school system is equity over excellence. The article praised the goal, but naturally many people also criticize it for holding back the talents and wasting intellectual resources. But as the goal of the compulsory school is to teach you to read, write and calculate, to give you a basic understanding of how things work, and to give you the keys to educate yourself further - regardless of your background - I think the noble goal has been achieved quite well. And let's remember that in this system the pupils and students are not customers, they are part of the system.

The article sheds light on the ideology behind the school system, but let's have a look at the structure:

I think the finest remark on this map is, that there are no dead ends in the system. In theory you can become a PhD no matter what you've chosen in your early days. Of course, it's not the intention that everybody achieves PhD and of course the road for PhD is longer with some choices compared to other. But the bottom line is that you don't close the doors for the rest of your life, even though you'd have a difficult teenage crisis. And in the end of the day, no matter which path do you take, you will (or you should) end up working.