Browsing by Subject "koulutuspolitiikka"

The aim of my Master’s Thesis was to find out what kind of tasks were set for education in the 2019 parliamentary election programs. For years, researchers in the United States and Europe have studied the educationalization of social problems, which refers to the tendency to look to educational institutions in resolving the pressing social problems. In Finland, this phenomenon has rarely been studied under its own concept. Previous studies on the change in educational policy towards more individual-centered and market-oriented thinking suggested that educationalization also takes place in the Finnish context as well. In my research, I try to find out the kind of tasks political parties assign to education in their election programs and how they present the educationalization of social problems. The aim of my research is to create a picture of the most common tasks to be set for the education in the spring 2019 parliamentary election programs and to analyze the educationalization associated with the programs. The material of my research is the election programs of the parties elected to Parliament in the 2019 parliamentary elections. In my study, I relied on a frame analysis, which I use to structure the most common tasks and ideals set for education. After compiling the frames, I analyze each frame based on previous research. In my analysis, I seek to highlight the educationalization that appears in the election programs. The tasks given by the parties were very much in line with each other. The results showed a clear educationalization, which identified various complex societal problems as the responsibility for education, without specifying in more detail how education could actually solve the problem. More extensive research on educationalization is needed in the Finnish context, for example, to find out whether the resources given to education are in line with the increased number of tasks.

Since the 1980s, neo-liberal tendencies have had a marked influence on Finnish education policy. In 1994, legislative amendments made it possible for families to choose a school other than the neighbourhood school assigned to them. In recent years, the differentiation between schools and the differences in the social composition of pupils and school achievement have increased in particular in the metropolitan area. With increased polarization in the social composition of pupils, the more challenging pupils will concentrate in certain schools and the less challenging ones in other schools. Previous research indicates that the differences between pupil populations increase even faster than the differences between areas of residence. The purpose of this study was to describe, analyse and interpret the views regarding school choice held by the local education authorities in the metropolitan area. The aim was to investigate how the authorities recognise the phenomenon of school choice and its externalities. The externalities were named and recognised on the basis of the interview data and evaluated as positive, negative or neutral. The authorities' views on the politicization of the issue and its potential for politicization were investigated. The data comes from the interviews made in the project School markets and segregation – the social costs of school choice. Nine local education authorities from the metropolitan area were interviewed. Three participants were higher municipal officials, three were municipal officials and three belonged to local education committees. The data was analysed using theory-directed content analysis. The local authorities recognised the externalities and their practical consequences well and considered them mainly as negative. It was felt that there is potential for politicization in the question of school choice but for the time being it was not felt to have happened. School choice appeared as a complex phenomenon strongly influenced by housing and social policy. The study presents the authorities' angle into the discussion on school choice, which in previous research has played a minor role than, for example, regional policy.

Tutkielman aihe on pääministeri Juha Sipilän hallituskauden (2015–2019) aikana lukiokoulutukseen kohdistetut uudistushankkeet sekä niiden ympärillä käyty koulutuspoliittinen keskustelu. Lukiota ja ylioppilastutkintoa kehitettiin ja uudistettiin hallituskaudella useissa opetus- ja kulttuuriministeriön asettamissa työryhmissä ja hankkeissa. Tutkielman tavoitteena on selvittää niistä käydyn koulutuspoliittisen keskustelun sisältöä ja lukiokoulutukselle asetettuja tavoitteita. Tutkielmassa tarkastellaan lukion uudistamiseen ja hallituksen koulutuspolitiikkaan esitettyjä kannanottoja. Tavoitteena on tutkia, mitä intressejä ja arvoja lukiokoulutuksesta ja sen uudistamisesta esitettyihin näkemyksiin sisältyi. Tutkielmassa tarkastellaan myös, ketkä osallistuivat keskusteluun. Tutkielman aineiston muodostavat pääasiassa Helsingin Sanomissa vuosina 2015–2019 julkaistut uutisjutut, pääkirjoitukset, mielipidekirjoitukset ja kolumnit sekä opetus- ja kulttuuriministeriön työryhmien esitykset ja raportit. Lisäksi aineistona hyödynnetään muun muassa hallituksen esityksiä lakiuudistuksista sekä opetus- ja kulttuuriministeriön internetsivuilla olevaa hankemateriaalia ja tiedotteita. Tutkielman menetelmänä on laadullinen ja teorialähtöinen sisällönanalyysi. Analyysiä ohjaa käsitteistä ja aikaisemmasta tutkimuksesta muodostettu teoreettinen viitekehys, jonka tarkoituksena on auttaa jäsentämään koulutusuudistuksista käytyä keskustelua ja niiden lähtökohtia. Keskeisessä osassa tässä on koulutuspolitiikasta ja koulutushistoriasta tehty tutkimus sekä arvon käsitettä tarkentava ja arvojen tarkastelua selkeyttävä Shalom Schwartzin arvoteoria. Arvoja lähestytään myös uusliberalistisen ideologian kautta. Lehdistöaineistosta voidaan huomata, että opetus- ja kulttuuriministeriön ja sen asettamien työryhmien uudistusesityksistä käytiin julkista keskustelua, johon osallistuivat eri intressiryhmät. Helsingin Sanomien mielipidepalstalle kirjoittivat pääasiassa opettajat ja muut koulutusalan työntekijät, tutkijat, opiskelijat, eri alojen järjestöjen edustajat ja valtion virkamiehet. Myös uutisjutuissa tuotiin eri näkökantoja esiin. Tutkielman tutkimustulokset ovat hallituksen ja opetus- ja kulttuuriministeriön koulutuspoliittisten linjausten ja näkemysten osalta yhtenevät aikaisemman tutkimuksen kanssa. Uudistusesityksissä voidaan nähdä aikaisemman tutkimuksen tapaan viitteitä elinkeinoelämän toimijoiden ajamista taloudellisista intresseistä. Uusliberalistiseen ideologiaan liitetyt arvot, kuten yksilöllisyys, valinnanvapaus, tehokkuus, jousto ja kilpailu ovat tunnistettavissa hallituksen ja muiden lukiouudistuksia edistämään pyrkineiden tahojen lukiokoulutukselle asettamista tavoitteissa. Uudistuksia sekä kannatettiin että vastustettiin julkisessa keskustelussa. Yleisenä huomiona havaitaan, että kriittisiä kannanottoja oli Helsingin Sanomissa enemmän uudistushankkeesta riippumatta. Näissä kannanotoissa painottuivat usein yhteisökeskeiset intressit ja arvot. Koulutuksen tavoitteiden nähtiin kohdistuvan yksilön kasvuun ja tätä kautta yhteiskunnan jäsenenä toimimiseen. Näkemyksissä korostuivat esimerkiksi ajattelun ja kansalaisvaikuttamisen taidot, joiden katsottiin palvelevan yhteiskuntaa. Voidaan myös katsoa, että esimerkiksi opettajat ajoivat oman tieteenalansa intressejä. Keskeisiä arvoja uudistuksiin kriittisesti suhtautuneissa kannanotoissa olivat muun muassa yhteiskunnallinen järjestys, tasa-arvo, hyvinvointi, laajakatseisuus ja sivistys tai yleissivistys. Yhteenvetona voidaan todeta, että näkemykset voidaan jakaa karkeasti uudistuksia puoltaneisiin näkemyksiin, joissa korostuivat taloudellisesti painottuneet intressit ja yksilökeskeiset arvot sekä uudistuksiin epäilevästi tai kriittisesti suhtautuneisiin kannanottoihin, joissa korostuivat yhteisökeskeiset intressit ja arvot. Jakolinja ei kuitenkaan ollut aina selkeä, vaan samoilla tavoitteilla ja arvoilla perusteltiin myös vastakkaisia näkemyksiä. Esimerkiksi keskeiseksi osoittautunut yleissivistyksen käsite toistui lukiokoulutukselle asetetuissa tavoitteissa ja sillä sekä perusteltiin että vastustettiin uudistuksia.

This thesis studies the development of Ethiopian education policy discourse from na-tion-building perspective. Nation-building is examined from three supplementary as-pects: technologies of truth, governmentality and historical change, to describe how it has been discussed in chosen policy documents. Ethiopian Education and Training Policy (ETP) and Education Sector Development Pro-grams I–V (ESDP) between 1994 and 2015 were analyzed with Michel Foucault’s con-cepts for analytics of governance: power, knowledge and subjectivity, and governmen-tality. Critical discourse analysis with Foucauldian concepts was used as a methodologi-cal framework in this research. Nationhood is produced in the education policy documents from one side with integra-tive strategies and civics education, and from other side with regional language and de-centralization policies. Education policy discourse appears to seek balance between ‘one nation’ and ‘multination’ perspectives. The national subjectivity ethos is described with expectations for acquired attitudes and values on individual level. Unified nation-ality is presented in the documents’ visualizations. It was found out that integrationist programs are aiming primarily at equity in education system instead of promoting com-mon nationhood. Educational language policies support cultural diversity and regional differentiation. The findings of this research show that nationality ethos appears ambig-uously formed and fragmented in Ethiopian education policy discourse. Nation-building aim has faded in Ethiopian education policy discourse and the primary role of education has shifted into being an instrument for economic growth. This re-search raises concerns about the social sustainability of current policies with weakened nation-building aims and regional disparity. Strengthened democratization of the society and civic education play an important role in influencing national subjectivity for-mation. Further research about citizenship education and its effectiveness in Ethiopia is needed.

Competence-based orientation guides secondary vocational education. An important tool for implementing competence-based education is personal competence development plan (PCDP). At PCDP a learning path is planned for each student that meets her/his needs. The purpose of this study was to expand the understanding of PCDP: to explore the guiding legislation governing PCDP and the experiences of teachers and education organizers. The empirical part of this thesis was carried out as qualitative research in June-September 2023 in Finland. Totally 19 teachers and representatives of education organizers were interviewed. In addition, educational institution’s forms and guidelines were analysed. The main purpose of PCDP is to guide the student. Through PCDP the fulfilment of compulsory education is monitored, information is collected for the funding of the institutions and for different feedback. The whole PCDP process is guided by several laws, regulations, and binding instructions. PCDP is seen as an important tool for student counselling. But in its current form it does not fully meet its main goal - to help the student to reach for her/his best. PCDP is seen as a bureaucratic process that takes too much time. The reason for this is that a lot of detailed information about the student must be recorded in PCDP. New regulations and claims have increased the amount of information recorded to PCDP. In addition, the educations institutions collect also other information in PCDP. There is also variation in the extend of the collected data. As a result, it is suggested that due to the strong regulation, heavy student administrations systems and various further data transfer needs from PCDP to eHOKS (ePCDP) and KOSKI-services, make the process heavy and guide PCDP to wrong direction – away from student guidance and counselling. The process currently takes a significant number of resources: time and attention from meeting the student. Time pressure and responsibility also burden teachers and educational institutions. Based on the results, is recommended that PCDP must be simplified to the information that is essential in terms of teaching and counselling. For example, data collected for educational institution´s funding could be partly separated from PCDP-process. Data transfers to eHOKS and KOSKI-services must be streamlined and the cooperations between supervising authorities and study administration system producers must be increased. In addition, the educational institutions must reserve sufficient resources for PCDP work and review the other data collected at the educational institutions. By clarifying the PCDP-process the quality of guidance can be further improved and free up time for teaching and student counselling.

This study explores how equality of education is addressed in the education policy analysis of the OECD and the European Union, while also assessing what other special educational aspects the analysis highlights. The study examines these questions in the cases of Finland, Estonia and Denmark. In previous literature, the OECD and the EU have been perceived as proponents of neoliberal educational policies, which are built on the principles of economic efficiency and competitiveness. These policies have been considered as potentially conflicting with traditional Nordic educational policies that emphasize equality. This study is a qualitative master’s thesis. The research material consists of the OECD’s Education Policy Outlooks and the European Commission’s European Semester Country Reports. The research method of this study is content analysis. The study showed that the OECD and the EU seem to have four distinct angles to equality of education in their country reports. These were the equality of students with immigrant background, socio-economic status and its effect on equality, gender equality as well as structural policies that can enhance equality. In terms of special education, the organizations emphasized student performance and questions regarding nature of schools and school quality. These two categories are further divided to more specific sub-categories. For student performance, the sub-categories are student learning results and taking part in education, whereas for nature of schools and school quality, the sub-categories consist of participation of the education system as well as schools as learning environments.

Objective of the study Finnish elementary school student assessment is a multidimensional phenomenon that is possible to examine from the point of view of different actors and structures of the school. The basis and peripheral conditions of the assessment are presented in the curriculum thus linking itself to the broader educational policy context. From the perspective of the teacher and pupil, the assessment is often structured by three mutually supportive tasks - on the direction of diagnostic, formative and summative evaluation. Diagnostic evaluation means determining the pupil's baseline level of competence in the beginning of a learning period. Formative evaluation means feedback and guidance during the learning process. Summative evaluation, on the other hand, means evaluation at the end of the course that measures things learned. Pupil assessment is a very complex thing influenced by many different factors and operators. The purpose of this study is to understand the various dimensions of primary school pupil assessment especially from the teacher's perspective. Specifically, the objective of the thesis is to structure pupil evaluation from the perspective of pupils learning, teaching and social function. Methods Qualitative data from the study consisted of five themed interviews, involving five teachers at different career stages from different schools and municipalities. The thematic interview’s frames were based on to an earlier evaluation studies in the direction of research objectives. In the interviews, teachers were asked about experiences of evaluation, evaluation from the perspective of students’ learning and what social objectives are included in the evaluation. Interviews were held remotely due to the pandemic situation and they were about an hour long in duration. The data was analyzed using theory-guiding content analysis. Results and conclusions The study found that evaluation has quite a multidimensional function in the school system. Evaluation serves as a tool constructing the student's identity which also structures all teaching work and planning. On the other hand, assessment can also be seen to classify pupils due to the admissions system of upper secondary schools. This can have a contradictory effect when it comes to elementary schools learning goals. Evaluation is also an ongoing big equality challenge because it reflects differences between pupils, schools and municipalities. Assessment is part of the curriculum, that is a document which regulates and controls all schooling. Curricula are drawn up in collaboration with different actors and organizations about every ten years. Consequently, changes in pupil assessment needs a lot of political support and activity.

In 2020, many social institutions such as educational institutions faced a new challenge due to a global health and social crisic called the COVID-19. The coronavirus pandemic was and still is presented in the news on a daily basis. This master’s thesis examines what exactly was reported about basic education during the first wave of coronavirus in the Finnish media. The goal was to find out what matters and in what way basic education was written about. The study material consists of 68 news articles from the following online news services: Helsingin Sanomat, Yle and Iltalehti. The theoretical section introduces the Finnish school system and school policy and also discusses the curriculum, basic education, the social function of the school institution, social constructionism and the media. The study was made from a qualitative perspective, and discourse analysis was used. The study showed that the news coverage of basic education was versatile and diverse in the Finnish media during the first wave of coronavirus, which is an indication of the significance of basic education and its important role in society. The news coverage was mainly informative, but a significant amount also emphasized opinion, which shows that basic education affects the everyday life of Finns extensively and closely, and which is why it was presented in the media, for example in the form of opinion pieces. The news topics especially highlighted distance learning and teaching arrangements and the related experiences, and these provide relevant topics for further studies.

Aims This study aims to give upper secondary school students a possibility to participate in current discussion on updating curriculum and developing Finnish upper secondary school education and in this way bring illustrative information of important things from students' point of view. The aim is to compare student's views, political goals and current theories and perceive what kind of citizenship different educational discourses that work in the field of upper secondary school education aim to produce. The study aims to examine how different students define essential general education in the future and what kind of position they take towards the hegemonic norm of active competitive citizenship that is the goal of the official educational policy. Methods The data of this study consists of four focus group interviews in four upper secondary schools in the metropolitan area of Finland. The method of critical discourse analysis was applied in the analysis. Different discourses were perceived and then compared with the hegemonic official educational political discourse. Results and Conclusions By analyzing different educational discourses the goal of this study is to consider how to develop upper secondary school education to promote well-being and equality of the students in a way that pays attention to students' different backgrounds and needs. Discourses that are found in students' conversations are summarized into two opposite discourses on future's citizenship: competitive discourse and well-being discourse. This study aims to indicate that discourses rise from a realistic ground. It can be said that successful students can easily reach official political efficiency goals whereas students that are not so well-off need support to reach the normative goals. This study indicates that students' different needs should be taken into account and actively offer guidance to students so that they didn't need to take the responsibility for their future all alone. Recognizing students' different goals and plans would be useful when considering what kind of general education is essential concerning upper secondary school education and how to support different students' ability to build their identities, find their own way and support their well-being. Students' accounts also indicate that the skills needed in democratic citizenship should not be overshadowed by competitive and efficiency goals.

According to national and international educational policy objectives, entrepreneurship education should be a cross cutting component of all sectors of education, including higher education. The goal is to not only teach entrepreneurial skills but also to raise individuals towards the ideal of enterprising self. At the same time, universities are expected to operate more and more like private companies. This study examines this phenomenon called entrepreneurial ethos from the perspective of university students. Educational policy and university practices are examined in the frame of governance and knowledge capitalism that describes the transformation of education and work in our time. The study examines how the entrepreneurial ethos appears in students’ discourses and how students perceive the ideal of a good student in the context of entrepreneurial ethos. The data consists of interviews by fourteen Aalto University students from a technical field. The data was analysed in discourse analytic view. In the study, the discursive approach extends beyond the analytical method: It shows how discourses are produced and managed, what the consequences are and how social reality is built on them. The results of this study showed that entrepreneurship appeared to students mainly as startup entrepreneurship and entrepreneurship education as practical project work as opposed to theoretical study. The aim to become entrepreneurial was seen as an important goal of every individual. A good student was described as an entrepreneurial individual, with an emphasis on social skills and study interests, but partly as an individual in the midst of conflicting demands. Mostly, the students committed themselves to discourses of entrepreneurial ethos, but criticism was directed towards over-emphasizing the startup culture in the university. Governing through university practices shapes students’ subjectivities towards entrepreneurial self.