Acknowledgement

Before I begin a more detailed account of my project, I would like to thank various parties and people here:

• the Oxford and Cambridge Society of Hong Kong for their grant which has been a big financial help, and made this visit to Finland possible;
• Finnish National Board of Education: Mr. Reijo Laukanen for kindly giving an interview and Juha Ojanen for organising it for me in the most efficient manner;
• the Finnish Consulate General of HK: Consul General Timo Rajakangas and Viivi Berghem for their helpful and quick response to my inquiries, as well as sending me a lot of useful information;
• Meilahden ala-aste (Meilahden Primary School), esp Ms. Pia Nasman-Hao, Ms. Paivi Paakkanen (Principal), and Tero , and all teachers therePia

• Meilahden ylaasteen koulu (Meilahden Secondary School), esp Ms. Riikka Maeda, and all teachers there
• Moision Koulu (Moision Secondary School), esp Ms. Anneli Suominen, Mr. Arto Jokinen (Principal) and all teachers there, as well as Maija Pykalainen for helping me connect to the school.

Anneli

• the Education Bureau of Hong Kong (Information and Public Relations Section) for sharing their experiences in Finland with me;
• Mr Julius Sepponen for his interview with me
• Fancy, my sister, for her supplies and my family for their understanding and support;

• Kristina (my teacher) and Sue (Kristina’s friend) for their help in giving me ideas and taking an interest in my project;
• my friends and advisers: Carman and Theodora for agreeing to interviews, and Ray, Kan , Weiken and Natalie for their insight and anyone else I might have missed out!
  

Authors I would like to thank:

• Yolanda Chen陳之華and her husband, Mr. Liu for their very kind reception in Helsinki as well as her extremely helpful and informative book <沒有資優班，珍視每個孩子的芬蘭教育>

• Brian Wu吳祥輝 <芬蘭驚艷：全球成長競爭力第一名的故事>

• Fuyuan Xiao 蕭富元 <芬蘭教育世界第一的祕密>

These books have been incredibly helpful in my research giving me both background information and critical analysis about the Finnish education system. I hope that this little amateurish project of mine will be of some contribution to the existing literature.