Labor, the lesser evil

Re the article in the Weekend Australian about a national curriculum. It seems that Australia is falling behind in its educational goals and is constantly being outdone by South Korea and Finland. What do these two countries do that we don't in our education? Quick research on the net revealed that Finland requires that its teachers have a masters in education and that they specialise in their subjects.Therefore students in Finland have teachers that know their subjects inside out and can be constructive and creative facilitators for learning. Finnish teachers are not inspected as we are, it is assumed that there are expert teachers in every classroom.
South Korea is different. Instead it has a strong culture that imbues its children with respect for adults, leading to quieter classrooms! But it also puts enormous pressure on its students resulting in a very high suicide rate.
In Finland there are expert teachers and in Korea a strong culture and unrelenting pressure to do well. I prefer the expert teacher scenario of Finland. Perhaps we don't need a national curriculum, rather we need the human element of better educated teachers.