Globalization is the process touching every country,
and its academic version is internationalization. Globalization cannot be resisted,
as it will happen whether a country wants it or not. In this regards, every
country would inevitably become a cell in a bigger global organism. Finland is
not an exclusion of the “globalized” world. However, Finland selected its specific
national path for higher education to become internationalized.
According to Strategy of Internationalization of higher education institutions (HEI) in Finland (2009), it is important to create strong internationally higher
education and research community in Finland. However, together with
International Strategy, the Finnish Ministry of Education published the report
referring to local dimensions (Ahola, 2010). Ahola (2010) claims that “One central aim has
been to rationalize the Finnish system, which has become massified and
regionally and functionally over-diversified” (p. 43). For instance, structural
development of Finnish universities are realized in various ways: merging
universities, decentralizing their steering system, renewing internal
management, governance and decision-making systems. In other words, Finnish
education policy keeps the following trends: institutional cooperation and
mergers between universities, stratification and differentiation, and the
reform of governance and leadership (Tirronen, 2009). For example,
stratification is one of the new phenomena for Finnish higher education, which
means an equality and cohesion.
Secondly, the trends of marketization and
commercialization of higher education are inevitable parts of competition
between universities in Europe. On the one hand, these trends improve the
quality of education; on the other hand, it could be considered as the threat
for Finnish higher education. The free higher education is one of the strengths
of Finland, which attracts international students. However, there are many
discussions to introduce tuition fees for foreign students.
It seems that Finnish government understands the
necessity of internationalization and its importance. Nevertheless, from
historical facts, they try to keep the meaning of higher education as a public
good. The Finnish government is possibly afraid of an external political
factors and “power” of Europe, which influence on HE, language and political
situation in the country.
References
Ahola, S. (2005). Global and local
priorities in higher education policies: a headache at the national level? Tertiary
Education & Management, 11(1),
37-53.
Ministry of Education of Finland
(2009). Strategy for the Internationalization of Higher Education Institutions
in Finland 2009-2015.
Tirronen, J., & Nokkala, T.
(2009). Structural development of Finnish universities: Achieving
competitiveness and academic excellence. Higher
education quarterly, 63(3),
219-236.
Sholpan! Thank you very much for your post! I think you raised very important topic in the field of education. This is because many countries are aware of the success of Finnish teachers. Once I watched a video on youtube which explains the key factors that made them be one of the leading countries in education.In fact, you already mentioned some of the salient strategies Finnish teachers utilize. I found that very interesting to know. I believe you like it as well. This is the link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2kK6u7AsJF8
ReplyDelete