Finnish Politics Finnish Schools

BIG GOVERNMENT ENTITLEMENT WATCH: FINNISH STUDENTS GIVEN MORE TIME TO STUDY ON THE TAXPAYERS’ DIME……..

 

 And of course this big government entitlement is now cemented into Finnish thinking as…a right. Please do take note of how easy the bureaucrat at the Education Ministry labels higher education as being…free.

“Education is free, and so of course carries a certain obligation to complete a degree. This is especially true, as it’s known that we may be facing a labour shortage within a few years,” points out Ari Saarinen of the Education Ministry.”

NOTE: No their education is not free, every single student is subsidized by the Finnish taxpayer (whether they want to or not), including those who couldn’t quite make it into the university themselves and had to join the labor market.

A telephone survey of the nation’s universities found that almost every student who has asked for more time to complete a degree has been allowed to stay in degree programmes past the seven year limit.

The exception was a slightly more strict Aalto University, and a few individual cases elsewhere.

“Every student who had a clear study plan and intends to take a degree was granted more time,” explains Mikko Markkola, the head of the student affairs office at the University of Tampere.

A total of 240 students at Aalto University applied for an extension. The requests are still being processed, but the student affairs office there estimates that 210 of them will be approved.

First time

Until 2005, in theory, students could stay enrolled forever without finishing a degree. This year is the first time that some students have faced a limit on study time.

More here.

One Response

  1. It seems like a good use of tax money to me. Finland has one of the best educational systems in the world and is a consistent top scorer in the PISA league tables so taxpayers are getting good value for their money.

    If bright students go on to take degrees then the taxpayer subsidising them is a win-win situation as there is a direct correlation between a highly educated population and a countries BNP.

    It’s nice to know that my tax money is being well spent.

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published.

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.