Description: The Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) is best-known for its economic activities but it has also been active in the field of education during whole its history. However, the OECD and its education policy have been subject to a very limited amount of research internationally (see Papadopoulos 1994; Henry, Lingard, Rizvi & Taylor 2001; Vickers 1994) and especially in Finland (see Rinne, Kallo & Hokka 2004). Accordingly, the research questions of this paper are 1) How has the Finnish membership in the OECD and its educational activities developed during the last four decades and are there some separate phases to be distinguished?; 2) How do the Finnish top-level education policy-makers and civil servants perceive the role of Finland and the OECD in relation to the Finnish education policy? The paper contributes empirically to the discussion of the relationship between nation-state, international education policy and globalisation (see e.g. Dale 1999; Ball 1998; cf. Archer 2001; Weiss 1998). Methodology: The main research material consists of interviews of 18 education policy-makers and civil servants at the national level (the Ministry of Education and the National Board of Education). The interviewees are the persons in Finland with longest and/or deepest experience of educational cooperation with the OECD. The material also includes e.g. interviews of six former ministers of education. The material is first analysed thematically according to the historical development of the Finnish membership and its implications for the education policy. Secondly, the views of the interviewees on the OECD, its education policy and the role of national education policy are studied. Conclusions: The historical analysis of the Finnish membership in the OECD reveals four different phases. The first three are rather modest in their state of activity but the fourth phase beginning from the early 1990's is characterised by several types of new activities. The results of the analysis reveal that neither the OECD nor Finland or its education policy (-makers) are monolithic but consist of several views on education and its development. One important, if also presumable, conclusion is that the common view of Finland as the obedient pupil in the international education policy arena does not get support from the views of the interviewees (cf. Rinne et al. 2004).