Finland is lauded for its education standards but it is taking a stance on handwriting that would infuriate purists in Britain: dropping lessons in cursive — joined-up writing.
Schools in Finland are phasing out the lessons in favour of keyboard skills, because its board of education believes these are more useful.
Joined-up writing became more difficult after Finns introduced new ways of writing their letters 30 years ago.
Minna Harmanen, of Finland’s board of education, told The Guardian: “Children don’t have time to become fast at cursive writing, so it’s not useful for them. We used to do joined-up writing so that we could write faster, but these days kids only start learning it in grade two [aged eight] and have a year to