- About us
- About colleges
-
Corporate services
- Corporate services
- Mental health and wellbeing
- Data Protection/GDPR
-
Employment Services - college workforce
- Employment Services - college workforce
- Employment: How we support members
- Introduction & Employment Helpline
- Absence & Sickness Management
- Contracts and T&Cs
- Disciplinary, Capability & Grievance
- Employment Briefings Library
- Equality, Diversity & Inclusion
- General Employee Relations & HR Issues
- Holiday/annual leave related
- Industrial Relations
- ONS reclassification related guidance
- Pay & Pensions
- Recruitment
- Redundancy, Restructuring & TUPE
- Safeguarding/Prevent
- Workforce Benchmarking, Surveys & Research
-
Governance
- Governance
- Governance: How we support members
- Governance Timeline
- Representation
- AoC National Chairs' Council
- National Governance Professionals' Group
- Code of Good Governance
- External Governance Reviews
- Resources
- Governors Inductions
- Student Governor Inductions
- Student Governor Support Hub
- Guidance
- Hot Topics
- Governance Briefings
- Archive
-
Projects
- Projects
- Get Involved!
- Resources
- Contact the Projects Team
- Apprenticeship Workforce Development (AWD) Programme
- Creating a Greener London – Sustainable Construction Skills
- The 5Rs Approach to GCSE Maths Resits
- Creative Arts in FE 2024 – developing student voice through creativity
- DfE Multiply Capability Support Programme
- Digital Roles Across Non-digital Industries
- GCSE Resits Hub Project
- Pears Foundation Youth Social Action Programme: Phase 2
- T Level and T Level Foundation Year Provider Support Programme
- T Level Professional Development (TLPD) Offer
- The Valuing Enrichment Project
- Creative Writing in FE Anthology 2021/2022
- Resources/Guidance
- Sustainability & Climate Action Hub
- Partnerships
- Honours Nomination
- Brexit
- Ofsted Inspection Support
- Recruitment and consultancy
-
Events and training
- Events and training
- Events
- AoC Annual Conference and Exhibition 2024
- T Level and T Level Foundation Year Events
- Events and training: How we support members
- Network Meetings
- Previous Events and Webinars
- In-House Training
- Senior Leadership Development Programme
- Introducing AoC's Early Career and Experienced Managers' Programme
- Sponsorship and Exhibition Opportunities
- Funding and finance
-
Policy
- Policy
- Meet the Policy Team
- Policy: How we support members
- Policy Areas
- Policy Briefings
- Submissions
- Policy Papers & Reports
- AoC Strategy Groups
-
AoC Reference Groups
- AoC Reference Groups
- 14-16 Reference Group
- 16-18 Reference Group
- Adults (inc. ESOL) Reference Group
- Apprenticeship Reference Group
- EDI Reference Group
- HE Reference Group
- HR Reference Group
- International Reference Group
- Mental Health Reference Group
- SEND Reference Group
- Sustainability & Climate Change Reference Group
- Technology Reference Group
- WorldSkills Reference Group
- Opportunity England
-
Research unit
- Research unit
- Surveys
- MiDES Benchmarking
- Research Further
-
Research projects
- Research projects
- Investigating the impact of the apprenticeship levy on training outcomes - January 2024
- Forecasting the cost of the English HE funding system - November 2023
- Local skills improvement plans: a review of their impact and opportunities for the future
- The educational provision for 14 to 16-year-olds in further education in England
- Staying with the troublemakers: A celebration of research in FE
- Strengthening governance arrangements in the English post-16 skills system
- Data Sources
- Think Further - thought leadership in FE
-
News, campaigns and parliament
- News, campaigns and parliament
- Post-election hub
- General and mayoral election resources
-
Comms advice and resources for colleges
- Comms advice and resources for colleges
- Media relations: 10 ways to build effective relationships with the media
- How to choose a PR agency
- Legal considerations for communications and media work
- How to plan for a new build
- Crisis communications: your go-to guide
- How to handle photo consent for media and marketing
- How to evaluate a PR and media campaign
- How to react to regulation, funding and restructuring issues
- How to react quickly and effectively to the media
- Working with the media: a complete guide
- How to write a compelling case study
- How to write for the web
- College communications, marketing and campaigns community
- AoC Newsroom
- AoC Blogs
- Work in Parliament
- AoC Campaigns
- Briefings
- Communications, media, marketing and research: How we support members
-
Equality, diversity and inclusion
- Equality, diversity and inclusion
- Equality, diversity and inclusion blogs
- AoC’s Equity, Diversity and Inclusion Charter
- AoC’s Equity, Diversity and Inclusion Charter for further education sector organisations
- AoC’s Equity, Diversity and Inclusion Charter signatories
- Diversity in Leadership
- Black FE Leadership Group and AoC partnership agreement
- AoC's Equity Exchange
- Equality, diversity and inclusion: how we support members
- Equality, diversity and inclusion case studies
- ETF Inclusive Leadership Coaching Programme
- Equality, diversity and inclusion briefings
- Home
- News, campaigns and parliament
- AoC Blogs
- Sustainability education in Finnish vocational education - Eddie Playfair
Sustainability education in Finnish vocational education - Eddie Playfair
Fifth Exchange of Practices in the Education for Climate Targets (EXPECT) project.
Our fifth peer learning activity for this Erasmus+ funded project took place in Helsinki, Finland on 13-14th June 2022 where we were the guests of StadinAO, the largest vocational college in Finland, with 22,000 students.
The ‘sustainable Helsinki’ strategy of the City of Helsinki was outlined for us by Anssi Almgren. In education, this means a ‘hope-based’ curriculum designed to create opportunities for transformative and eco-social learning. The strategy has 23 education actions and includes a strong commitment to developing students’ sustainability mindset and being able to act themselves. The pedagogy is influenced by Paulo Freire’s dialogic approach and there is a recognition that the sustainable development goals are political objectives and require wholesale social transformation.
Marjaana Suorsa from the Ministry of Agriculture and Forestry set Finland’s zero carbon targets in the practical context of its very significant Forestry sector where much of the country’s forest is owned and managed by ordinary citizens, with over 600,000 owners, many of whom live in cities but feel a strong attachment to the forest economy. Sustainable land use and forest management are questions of wide popular concern and discussion, and climate change is creating new threats and vulnerabilities. Students looking to work in agriculture and forestry need a range of interdisciplinary knowledge and skills and scientific research and citizen science need to be integrated with farming and land management.
Sirpa Lindroos, Niina Srbinoska and Riika Kastu from StadinAO outlined the Finnish education system and the work of the college. The core principle is that the education system must be universal, accessible and inclusive with ‘no dead-ends’. Vocational education is a key element in lifelong learning, enrolment is open and continuous, and accreditation is flexible and modular. The common upper secondary diploma is made up of 180 units, taught over three-years for full-time students, with recognition of prior achievement, credit transfer and considerable choice of content, and including a common core of 35 credits.
Our tour of StadinAO confirmed that the college is superbly equipped with industry-standard kit and generously staffed with expert teachers. Skills need to be demonstrated in practical contexts, but assessment is appropriate to the setting rather than being highly standardised. Students who are not yet ready to benefit from the diploma can follow a pre-vocational preparatory programme until they are. There is no rationing of access and students can generally progress at their own pace.
There is no high-stakes inspection of the type we have in England, and staff teams have substantial delegated power and share tasks in a very co-operative and democratic way. I was most struck by the basic assumption of trust and commitment – staff-to-staff and staff-to-student – throughout the system. The core belief is that everyone has the best intentions and wants to achieve their personal best, not that they are trying to game the system or compete with others for the best grades.
“We seem to have created so many structures and processes to monitor, evaluate, segregate, rank and ration our provision and too often this perpetuates a sense of failure rather than supporting success”
Lessons to learn
Educational practices are never entirely transferable from one country to another, but I could not help thinking how much the English system would benefit from an injection of Finland’s more inclusive, generous and trusting ethos. We seem to have created so many structures and processes to monitor, evaluate, segregate, rank and ration our provision and too often this perpetuates a sense of failure rather than supporting success.
We heard about the green transition from Helen Ltd, an energy provider fully owned by the City of Helsinki and providing for a third of all Finnish households. The company is developing district heating projects, geothermal, wind and biomass generation and many innovative pilots. There is still a shortage of electricians who can install heat pumps, and this is a challenge which colleges are helping to address. We heard how wind power is now meeting 25% of Helsinki’s energy needs. We also heard about the new LUMI supercomputer data storage and processing facility which is entirely carbon neutral, being hydro-powered and water cooled and feeds into a local heating system.
We are very grateful to our hosts and all the presenters put together such an interesting programme to introduce the Finnish approach to integrating sustainability into technical and vocational education. This visit provided us with another fascinating piece of the Europe-wide jigsaw of sustainable vocational education.
Eddie Playfair, Senior Policy Manager, Association of Colleges (AoC), April 2022.
Our Latvian project partners have created a forth EXPECT newsletter which details the recent visits to Latvia and Finland. The newsletter is available to download below.