UniPID at the Finnish International Educators' Days

UniPID took part in the annual Finnish International Educators’ Days again this year to have a strategic planning day and to host two sessions.

UniPID took part in the annual Finnish International Educators’ Days (Korkeakoulujen kansainvälisten asioiden kevätpäivät) again this year. This time the event was held in Levi, Lapland and organised by the University of Lapland, Rovaniemi University of Applied Sciences and Kemi-Tornio University of Applied Sciences together with the Lapland University Consortium, CIMO and University of the Arctic. 

The UniPID Board met on Monday, the 20^th of May for a strategic planning day, the results of which will be made available soon. In addition, UniPID hosted two sessions at the Educators’ days, "Bridging the International Student and Staff Experience” and "International Collaboration & Global Responsibility”, on the 21^st of May.

The discussion panel for the Bridging the International Student and Staff Experience session was comprised of Sai Väyrynen from the University of Lapland, Turkka Sinisalo from the National Union of University Students in Finland (SYL), Mikko Joronen from the University of Turku and our very own Melissa Plath from the UniPID Coordination Unit at the University of Jyväskylä. Markku Kanninen from the University of Helsinki acted as the chair of the panel. The aim of the session was to discuss the integration of international students and staff. Sai explained that knowledge is not objective but culturally valued and that students from different cultural backgrounds are often used to different kinds of learning strategies than what we employ here in Finland. According to Sai, possible challenges for teaching international students include finding suitable teaching methods, motivating students and helping students to link teaching to their own experiences. Turkka advised that student unions should become more international and that international students should have more opportunities for working life experiences. Melissa commented on the lack of information for international students and staff related to their rights and responsibilities in Finland and Mikko on the low number of courses available for international students. Mikko also suggested that international students should be given more information on Finnish academic practices, but at the same time universities should also be prepared to question their own practices. Some more suggestions from the audience included encouraging learning the Finnish language and improving the systems for recruitment at universities.

The panel for UniPID’s other session, International Collaboration & Global Responsibility, included Riina Vuorento from the Ministry of Education, Science and Culture; Kaisa Vaahtera from the Academy of Finland; Iina Soiri from the Nordic Africa Institute and Eva Kagiri from UniPID. Olli Vainio from the University of Oulu chaired this session. The aim of the session was to address different views on the Finland - Europe – Africa research and education relationship and the role of different actors (researchers, educators, HEIs, research funding institutions) in supporting and defining global responsibility. Riina opened the discussion by introducing the view that by 2020, the Finnish higher education system would be more international and efficient. In order to improve Finland’s international collaboration, for example, development projects need to become wider and Finland needs to be open for new partners. Iina commented on how the view on global responsibility has changed significantly in the last 50 years. According to Iina, we should keep in mind that African countries are taking more responsibility themselves, so the role of different institutes might change. Comments from the discussions included the view that global responsibility should be seen more in practice, not just in universities’ strategies and that we should include the masses (rather than just governmental actors) in development projects.

In addition to the fruitful sessions, UniPID had its own information desk in the exhibition area, where participants could enter this year’s UniPID competition. The question for the competition was "How many FP7 (EU’s Seventh Framework Programme) projects have Finnish partner institutions?” The correct answer to the question was a whopping 1417 projects! The winning guess was 521 and the winner was awarded a 40 euro gift certificate to PlanShop.