The comparison with Australia is quite ironic. I would argue implementing drastic changes in a school system in a place like Australia would be much easier than Finland. These things work much better with the economies of scales afforded by large cities. The population density of Melbourne is orders of magnitude higher than that of Finland and let's not forget, more than half the OZ population lives in Sydney, Melbourne, Brisbane and Adelaide.

I found that Australians (in terms of politicians) are particularly probe to make these arguments how things can't be done here. The irony is that they go often both ways, either it can't be done because Australia is too big, or because its too small. High speed rail is another example, supposedly it's not feasible because of the low population density, completely ignoring the fact that the density is actually very concentrated, which is ideal for high speed rail. Just a connection Melbourne-Sydney would be perfect, that's (one of?) the busiest air routes in the world. This is all about political will, not feasibility.