UniPID is in the process of launching a project funded by the Ministry of Education and Culture that supports the role of Finnish Higher Education Institutions (HEIs) in supporting the pursuit higher education of asylum seekers, refugees and other immigrants arriving to Finland.

The goals of the project include:

• supporting the recognition of previously acquired skills and education (AHOT) of people of various immigrant statuses who reside in Finland; and 
• reinforcing the national and regional coordination of guiding immigrants to educational paths.
  
  

The project is meant to ensure that the previously completed studies and degrees of arriving immigrants are recognized as quickly as possible in order to guide these people to appropriate educational and career paths. The project especially improves the asylum seekers’ knowledge of available educational options and opportunities already when they live in reception centers. A quick and comprehensive recognition of existing education accelerates the immigrant’s integration into society and turns the previously available know-how of immigrants into a national resource.

The objective of the project is to act as a national and regional coordination point that is in charge of informing immigrants about opportunities in higher education and of guiding them to suitable education services. The project strives to develop practices based on which corresponding activities could be launched by various other HEIs. The project forms a contact network between HEIs that creates the means for relaying information and low-threshold communications with and between HEIs in educational matters that relate to immigrants. The network of contacts will also be utilized to disseminate information between HEIs and other project stakeholders. Furthermore, the project will network and engage Finnish researchers concerned with immigrant issues to provide support to the project’s goals.

The project compiles and disseminates information about different HEIs’ good practices that relate to the recognition of previously acquired skills and education of immigrants, among them career counselling and various opportunities that are specifically designed to help immigrants complement their previous know-how. The project also supports the creation of national good practices and so-called model paths, which improve the previous educational and career path models of immigrants. This process makes use of previously existing international cooperation and the experiences from other EU countries that relate to immigrants’ higher education.

Additionally, as a part of UniPID’s Virtual Studies programme, the universities will be provided an opportunity to offer their English-language studies targeted at immigrants virtually, across institutional borders, specifically focusing on the so-called bridge studies that prepare the students for higher education. UniPID also aims to open some of its pre-existing Virtual Studies courses on sustainable development to immigrants who do not have a student status in any of the UniPID member universities.  

Further information is available from UniPID Coordinator Johanna Kivimäki

Read a Finnish summary of the project's goals here.

Check out OKM's news on the project (in Finnish).

Check out what the national broadcasting company Yle wrote about our project (in Finnish).

More information coming soon!