ABSTRACT
Finland is regarded as one of the world’s most literate societies. As a nation of modest people, Finland never actually intended to be the best in the world. Finns like to compete, but collaboration is a more typical characteristic of this nation. In the early 1990s when Finnish education internationally was nothing but average, the Finnish Minister of Education visited her colleague in Sweden to hear, among other things, that by the end of that decade Swedish education system would be the best in the world. The Finnish Minister replied that the Finns’ goal is much more modest than that. “For us”, she said, “it’s enough to be ahead of Sweden.” And that, indeed, is what happened. This episode is an example of close sibling relationships and coexistence between Finland and Sweden. In fact, collaboration is more common than competition, also, between these neighboring Nordic nations.
