Sex Education - 5 Fun School Facts from Around the Globe

The K-12 (kindergarten to grade 12) system is prevalent in most areas, notably in the United States, Canada, South Korea, and Australia. Even with a similar system in other countries, different cultures will often result in schools having various approaches, rules, and so on.

Since schooling is so different from country to country, there are bound to be a few surprising facts here and there. Whether it's early integration of sex education, or more vocational classes than academic classes, here are a few random, fun, and surprising facts about schools and education.

1. School starts later in Finland. Finnish children don't start school until they're 7 years old, but even before then, they have day-care or preschool starting age 5. At that stage, social skills are the main focus. They also spend more time playing together than learning out of books.

2. Finnish children don't have tests. Yes, another fact from Finland. Unlike other educational systems, that in Finland doesn't believe in constantly testing and measuring students' progress. They also don't have a lot of homework. There is only one mandatory standardized test, taken when the children are 16.

3. Indonesian uniforms have only 3 basic colors. Excluding white for the short-sleeved shirts, the colours are red, navy blue, and blue-grey. Those are for primary, lower secondary, and upper secondary school, respectively. Boys usually wear shorts in the first 2 stages of education, exchanging them for trousers at the 3rd stage.

4. Japanese students clean their classrooms. The time after lunch is usually used for clean-up, including moving desks to the side of the room and sweeping the floor. Trash is usually thrown away during this time. In some public schools, students are also responsible for serving lunch portions as well as the after-lunch clean-up.

5. German schools have included sex education since 1970. It also covers a broad range of topics, from changes in puberty to homosexuality and the complications of abortion. While such in-depth sex education may be a shocker to more conservative parents, it helps. Germany actually has a very low rate of teenage births and pregnancy because of it.