New information or chasing after indicators?

This is the final part of a three-part blog series in which Delila Belahcen, member of our Board in charge of educational policy, outlines a vision for educational policy for 2040.

The duties of universities include promoting independent academic research and both scholarly and artistic education, providing research-based higher education and educating students to serve their country and humanity at large. To maintain high-quality education, previous levels of education must also provide sufficient skills. Research-based education helps produce critically thinking citizens who understand their own opportunities to influence matters and want to act constructively in society. Interaction skills, critical thinking and participation in society do not develop automatically. They develop in a society where education is widely accessible and free.

The most important basic function of universities, producing scientific knowledge and education, is widely understood and acknowledged. We also know that . We can only produce new high-quality research through strong basic funding. Academic freedom cannot be realised if the people conducting basic research have to endure an uncertain financial environment and teaching and research personnel become exhausted in the crosswinds of performance management. Strong and predictable funding makes long-term work possible in universities, and the new ideas, innovations and societal development produced by extensive basic research are built upon it.

What kind of Finland do we want to see in 2040, and what societal role will higher education and research have then? An educational system is not a collection of unrelated visions and policies – it is the most important investment a society can make in its future. If our goal is a stable, safe and democratic Finland, we need long-term funding solutions that prioritise having a genuine civilised society and academic freedom.

Delila Belahcen

Member of the Board in charge of educational policy