The level of competence in Finland will not increase with production-line degrees

The level of competence in Finland has had a worrying downward trend since the early 2000s. The stated goal has consequently been to raise the level of education so that a half of each age group would have higher education degrees. Member of our Board Venla Lehtinen is worried that the course correction made to increase the level of education is being made by compromising the quality of education.

Finnish society needs more high-level expertise instead of simply increasing the number of higher edcuation graduates. Ensuring that an increasing number of people have the opportunity to study in a higher education institution is a good thing and worth pursuing. However, focusing solely on quantitative indicators and criteria will not take us far. The number of degrees is not the absolute measure of competence.

Discussion within universities is also focusing increasingly on the language of finance and the importance of numbers. Various indicators rule over the performance management of universities, and references to ‘student material’, ‘completion rates’ and ‘flowthrough’ are on the rise. This equation has reduced students to mere financial resources. All this obscures what is at the core of university education: humanity. When the diversity of life and human activity is reduced to numbers for the needs of decision-making processes, learning and education will deteriorate unnoticed.

Developing one’s competence requires learning, which in turn requires understanding, critical thinking, creativity and, above all, time. Pressuring students to study at a fast pace reduces the amount of time available for education and culture, encourages efficiency, increases the pressure felt by students and drives our society to an ever more performance-oriented direction.

Why do we celebrate raising the level of competence in speeches, if we are not prepared to understand what competence includes and what it requires? The universities’ freedom of action is currently being constantly reduced with new indicators and objectives that they must meet with diminishing resources. At the national level, the funding for universities is a zero-sum game where one’s success is another one’s loss.

The increases to student places made in recent years without an appropriate increase to funding are in danger of leading to the deterioration of the quality of education and, ultimately, to compromising on competence. Increasing the amount of competence and higher education is not an equation where we can expect constant high-quality growth to continue far into the future without being committed to funding these goals at the state level. The risk is that our universities will turn into mere degree factories, and a genuine increase to the level of competence will remain unattained.

This spring, the Ministry of Education and Culture is making a vision for higher education and research extending to 2040. During the work on the vision, attention must be paid to ensure that any measures taken to raise the level of education will not be merely superficial. Increasing high-level, high-quality competence requires financial investments and a long-term commitment over election terms from the government. Numbers flowing through machinery do not increase the level of competence. Competence and education are not production-line goods – so let us not turn our universities into degree factories.

Venla Lehtinen 

Member of HYY’s Board in charge of educational policy