Vocational Education and Training Trends in Finland.

Overview & Synopsis

Vocational education and training in Finland consists of prevocational education at the preprimary and comprehensive school levels and formal vocational training at the secondary and postsecondary levels. Prevocational education aims to foster children's harmonious personality development by integrating handicraft and practical subjects teaching to preprimary and comprehensive school curricula. Formal vocational education at the secondary and adult education levels is directed toward contributing to economic development. Problems of the present vocational education system include the following: (1) the demand for an educated labor force cannot be met in all fields; (2) opportunities for further education do not match young people's preferences; and (3) distinctions between academic and vocational education are too sharp. The practice of adult vocational education has been guided by the principles of educational equality and continuous education. Issues for further educational development are reorganization of upper secondary schooling to integrate vocational and academic education and creation of new forms of postsecondary and occupational higher education. The main goals of the new vocational education reform are further broadening of vocational skills and opening of educational channels from vocational education to higher education and universities. (Appendixes include 19 references and statistics and information on the structure of the Finnish educational sytem.) (Author/YLB)