Each year, a new group of international students starts in the Vocational Teacher Education program. This year, Haaga-Helia's 23 new teaching students represent 17 different nationalities.
Students are from countries such as Brazil, India, the United States, Spain, Ghana and also Finland, including one from the Åland Islands.
A wide spectrum of different cultures
Vocational Teacher Program gives teacher qualification for universities of applies sciences and vocational training. The cultural spectrum of students is wide.
— Participants are either arriving in Finland or living in Finland for a varying amount of time, someone up to 20 years. Getting a residence permit is one of the challenges when the time from receiving a place of study to starting studies is very short. So on the first contact day, there were participants from Ghana and Albania, says Liisa Vanhanen-Nuutinen, who works as a teacher for the group together with David Mauffret.
The educational background of vocational teache students is diverse. —Included are language teachers, IT proficient, engineer, early childhood education teachers, music teacher, legal scholar, tourism graduate, physical education instructor. There are two PhDs and two are in doctoral studies.
—The positive thing this time is that VELVO trainers are also involved, meaning they already have a teacher's job, which the employer requires qualification for, explains Vanhanen-Nuutinen.
Internationality in many directions
Haaga-Helia's vocational teacher training has been weighted towards internationalism in recent years, both in Finland and abroad. Finland's high quality education system has a particularly good reputation in the world.
Exports of teacher education began in 2007, and teacher training has been exported to countries such as South Africa, Colombia and Uruguay. Courses are also offered in the form of continuing education. The latest is an “Introduction to E-Learning with Finnisg Touch” aimed at teachers and coaches abroad.
