The Finnish Education Evaluation Centre (FINEEC) will publish several sets of topical evaluation results in spring 2024. The themes of the publications will include an evaluation of education programmes in early childhood education and care, new forms of student counselling introduced as compulsory education was extended, and an overview of learning outcomes in Swedish-language schools.
Anticipation of skills needs and information resources related to education have been improved in recent years. However, there is room for improvement in the way this information is used to reform the qualification system. While the current qualification system addresses the skills needs of working life fairly well, challenges are associated with developing different qualification types as a whole, identifying overlapping skills in different qualifications, and tackling inconsistencies in quality between the qualification requirements.
The Finnish Education Evaluation Centre (FINEEC) has audited the University of Ljubljana (UL). The university passed the audit and received a quality label valid for six years. As the largest university in Slovenia, the UL plays a pivotal role in contributing to societal reforms. The university received praise from FINEEC's international audit team for its responsiveness to social needs and priorities. One of the university’s strengths was also its culture of self-reflection, self-development, and self-renewal.
Almost half of the new students at universities of applied sciences (UAS) have graduated from a vocational school. In the context of UAS studies, these students’ strengths include industry-specific competence, work experience and workplace skills. Deficiencies in the students’ competence are typically related to communication skills, foreign languages and mathematics. However, universities of applied sciences provide diverse support to their students, and students who hold a vocational qualification are successful in their higher education studies.
Many 9th-grade students process even simple numerical problems significantly longer than is typical for their age group. On average, the lowest-performing students were at a sixth-grade level in terms of fluency, but a third of poorly performing students were at levels 3-5.
The Finnish Education Evaluation Centre (FINEEC) will publish several sets of topical evaluation results in winter 2023–2024. The themes of these publications include comprehensive school students’ learning outcomes, new forms of student counselling introduced as compulsory education was extended, and the competence produced by vocational education and training in relation to the requirements of studies at universities of applied sciences.
In recent years, early childhood education and care (ECEC) has seen major legislative amendments and curriculum updates. As new objectives have been set for early childhood education and care, some of the practices in ECEC centres and family day care have changed. ECEC management plays a key role in successfully mainstreaming reforms in the daily life of ECEC units.
FINEEC's old website had reached the end of its technical life cycle, and the need to redesign the website had been evident for a while. Here, we describe the key changes made to the website, so that you can continue to find the information you need.
The most important aspect of the website redesign project was to enable the better utilisation of information. That is why the content and structure of the website have been slightly rearranged and site search has been improved. Accessibility aspects have also been taken into account.
The University of Turku (UTU) passed the audit conducted by the Finnish Education Evaluation Centre (FINEEC). The University of Turku received special praise from the FINEEC audit team for its inclusive quality culture, which enables staff and students to participate widely in the development of the University’s operations and services. The development of curricula is systematic. The University has a strong commitment to promoting multidisciplinarity and societal impact.