Finland is in an economic
depression. The new government has taken strong measures to strengthen the
economy and to implement change. In a welfare society like Finland the major
cost areas are education and healthcare including social care. From the two choices the easier choice is to
cut down on education. This is what the new government is doing, despite its
pre-election promises to promote education. Sometimes the best defensive
position is offence. Online courses can open the Finnish education market to
the world. Building online courses is what Finnish universities should focus
on.
Finding an online course and
registering into the course on the American course provider Coursera will take
only a few minutes. In Finland the universities of applied sciences are in most
cases owned by local municipalities. This means that their general orientation
is very much in supporting local activities and local welfare. I have recently
challenged several owners of these local universities to register into an
online course provided by their own (or the neighboring) university. I have
also encouraged them to show me how it is done. Unfortunately thus far I have
seen no success. Registering into an
open course of a Finnish University is – at present - a cumbersome process.
I am sure this is about to
change. Implementing an online registering process is not a difficult task. We
already have online learning platforms and online courses that are good enough
for global competition. The only thing we need to do is to open these up to the
world. The only thing we need is an efficient online registration process.
You might be asking why this
has not been done before. We have suffered from a sense of a lack of urgency.
When everything is fine, why change. This is known as complacency.
There are also some deeper
reasons embedded in the way we have structured our society. Traditionally
education in Finland has been free. Under economic pressure this is due to
change. Open education in Finland is not free. Universities are charging
minimum fees for open online participation and are granting access to free degree
education, if the student has successfully accomplished enough open courses.
Also a recent change is that Finnish universities can charge an annual tuition
fee from students coming from outside the European Economic Area (the EU
countries plus Norway, Iceland and Liechtenstein).
At the core to building an
information society is an understanding of how value is created and captured
with information based services in highly networked environments. Deep at the
very center of building an information society is a reallocation of rights.
Although I am critical and feel that the Finns lack in their understanding of
these fundamental information society building blocks, the recent changes in laws
guiding universities are steps in the right direction. Sometimes even the blind
find their way ahead.
Online education is a great
export product with which to tap into the international student market. Finland
is of the beaten path and remains an exotic and cold country in the north with
a midnight sun in the summer. We have to be active in our activities to lure
paying students into our universities. Most students can benefit from our
online services and need not travel to the far north. An online education
service will polish our brand and show in practice – give a taste of our
education and show that we are among the best education providers in the world.
All we need is an online
registration service. And yes, also a lot of active digital marketing is needed.
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