Candidate for the position of SYL’s chair

Antti Kaijansinkko

Investments in education made today help solve problems in the future. Despite this, our current student movement has not managed to convince decision-makers of the importance of its message. On the contrary, short-sighted structural adjustment efforts have been made in the government budget in the form of unprecedented cuts from students’ subsistence. SYL must reform its advocacy work to increase its impact, and I want to take responsibility for this.

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Stronger image

The mental images that national policies concerning students are based on are crucial for our societal status. Are the students in public debate members of a well-off elite or freshers starting their studies in the Student Union’s emergency accommodation?

The decision is ours. SYL must consolidate its media influencing efforts to regain control over mental images concerning students.

Stronger field

There are over 130,000 university students in Finland, and all Finnish student unions are members of SYL. SYL cannot only speak with its members’ voice – their voices must be amplified.

The county and municipal elections held next year are an important opportunity to combine the local interests of student unions with SYL’s national goals. Especially the acute housing shortage that is a relevant issue for many student unions is, on the one hand, decided at the national level but, on the other, an issue with unique local characteristics. As a result, the solution requires advocacy work at both local and national levels.

How will I advance this goal as SYL’s chair?

  • I will emphasise the visibility of student unions in SYL’s advocacy work before the election spring.
  • I will facilitate reconciling SYL’s advocacy work on housing policy with the municipal and county election work of student unions suffering from the housing shortage.
  • I will reinforce the collective advocacy work of SYL and our members as part of SYL’s continuous activities by, for instance, implementing the right of members to make initiatives directly to SYL.

    • Stronger message

      The Student Union has tended to frame its advocacy message around social justice. However, experience shows that Finland’s current government cannot be convinced by only appealing to emotions. The crises concerning students’ personal finances and mental health problems are obviously a serious issue ethically, but they also have profound long-term effects on Finland’s national economy.

      While several OECD countries have managed to even double the share of population with higher education during the 2000s, Finland’s level of education has stagnated. Public expenses tied to the country’s age structure will be rising in the future, but cuts to subsistence, an increased focus on loans and the students’ mental health crisis will result in a failure in the efforts to raise the level of education and to thus increase the kind of workforce that would help reduce the sustainability gap in our national economy.

      This is why investing in students is a prerequisite for the future of our entire society.

    • I led the transition of HYY’s Board from 12 members to 8 while also improving the Board’s results on all indicators related to wellbeing at work.
    • I enforced a flat fee for HYY’s Board by lowering my own annual remuneration by over one third to share it among the entire Board.
    • I was in charge of cooperation with interest groups on the ‘Peace to Study’ demonstration, which resulted in all student unions of universities, several student unions of universities of applied sciences and up to 50 other organisations joining the demonstration, representing over 180,000 higher education students.
    • Several appearances in the media, including YLE Aamu, Yle Radio, Helsingin sanomat and the most widely circulated newspaper in France, Le Monde.
    • I served as the chair of the strategy working group and was responsible for preparing HYY’s Strategy for 2025–2030.
    • I was the member of the Board in charge of the working group on HYY’s Constitution, overseeing matters such as the addition of an entry on trilingualism and the synchronisation of the election cycle with other student unions.
    • I led HYY’s 26-member delegation at SYL’s general assembly and the preparation for it.
    • I was in charge of the advocacy work of Pykälä ry, the faculty organisation of the Faculty of Law at the University of Helsinki.
    • I led the 8-member Committee for Studies and the 4-member Committee for Advocacy Work.
    • I represented the faculty’s students in the update of the curriculum, managing to get entries making it easier to combine work and studies and standardising assessment practices on courses included in the curriculum.
    • Member of Pykälä ry’s strategy working group, 2024
    • Member of the University Collegium, 2024
    • Member of the Faculty Council of the Faculty of Law, 2022–2024
    • Pykälä ry’s representative in the general assemblies of the Finnish Law Students’ Association in 2023, 2022 and 2021

    • Contacts

      Antti Kaijansinkko 

      Antti.kaijansinkko@hyy.fi

      050 475 1280