Students and administrators: Government’s education policy is unrealistic

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The government’s goal is to increase the proportion of young people receiving higher education to 50% by 2030.

Two women and a man sit at a low coffee table in a television studio with a purple background. — On Thursday morning, Education Ministry official Aleksi Kalenius, National Union of University Students (SYL) president Heidi Rättyä and Rectors’ Conference of Finland’s Universities of Applied Sciences president Ida Mielityinen spoke to Yle TV. Image: Morning in Il

The actions taken by the current government since taking office have not been enough to achieve its own education goals. Ida MietinenExecutive Director of the Rectors’ Conference of Finnish Universities of Applied Sciences (Arene).

Among other goals, the Cabinet, led by the Prime Minister Petri Orpo The National College of Political Science and Law (NCP) has said it wants to increase the number of doctoral students. In February this year, the Ministry of Education and Culture allocated 255 million euros to universities to train 1,000 new doctoral students.

Militiainen believes that the government’s measures are ineffective.

“Really significant changes should be made to the current policy. Despite the situation, it seems that preparations are not in place (to make sufficient changes to higher education policy),” Milittinen said on Yle TV1’s morning talk show on Thursday.

The Finnish Student Union SYL also believes that the government’s intentions are unrealistic. SYL education policy experts said Heidi LattaClearly, with current resources, it is impossible to achieve the Cabinet’s educational objectives.

“Resources are insufficient. Educational capacity must be increased and political decisions must be made to do so,” she stressed.

Finland lags behind other similar countries in terms of education level

Finland’s long and steady rise in education levels has stalled, while the education levels of citizens in many peer countries have surpassed Finland’s.

according to Alexi KalleniusA senior official at the Ministry of Education and Culture said that while the government still had a lot of work to do, there were some good signs.

“Access to higher education has improved over the past decade, with record numbers of people starting university in the early 2020s,” he said.

Across OECD countries, the proportion of people aged 25-34 with a tertiary education degree has risen to 47%, while in Finland the proportion has fallen behind and is currently around 40%.

The government says the proportion of young people with higher education should be as high as possible by 2030.

But Kallenius said it was already clear that the 50% target would not be achieved. In the long term, he said, the government’s goal was to strive to become one of the countries with the highest levels of education in the OECD.

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