FINLAND. In the year 2030, the purity of Finnish lakes will be such that you can drink from them. When conflict erupts, a Finnish crisis response team will quickly be dispatched to the scene. But above all, Finland will be an education superpower showing the world how a lifelong learning path of the richest quality is constructed.

Finland is given a mission

The door opens on a golden future in the report submitted to Minister for Foreign Affairs Alexander Stubb by an expert group working on developing a country brand for Finland. It was not a coincidence that the setting for launching the report was a primary school in a Helsinki suburb, since the brand developers strongly believe in education being the basis of the country’s competitive edge.

The Country Brand Delegation includes, among others, a European member of parliament, the CEO of a design house, the manager of a media house, a visual artist, a top football player and a University chancellor. Foreign Minister Stubb praised their work as ‘unique, thorough and surprising’. The strategy was forged over two years.

One thing that certainly surprised the Minister was that instead of witnessing the unveiling of a finished brand concept, he was handed a 335-page workbook entitled Mission for Finland. It contains about 130 tasks for institutions and citizens, including one for the field of adult education.

The chairman of the branding group, Jorma Ollila, former CEO of the mobile phone giant Nokia, bases the format of the workbook on a national tradition of working together. ‘Traditions of collective neighbourhood clean-ups and repair jobs (‘talkoot’) and the Finnish spirit of courage and tenacity (‘sisu’) are the driving force behind this initiative.’

This shows in the educated and cultured character of the Finnish people as well. ‘Where the French know their Voltaire by heart, a solution-oriented approach is ingrained in all Finns,’ the report states.

A narrow view of education and culture

The message of the report is that ‘a small nation may be a giant of education’. In lieu of this principle, the delegation calls on the IT sector and educators to cooperatively make use of innovations in education technology, businesses are encouraged to develop apprenticeship programmes and higher education institutions are urged to include a period of tutoring or mentoring in their degree programmes.

The branders see themselves as developing Finnish rights and duties and include adult education, which bolsters society, in the Finnish social contract. The report has, however, been met with criticism in adult education circles.

Among those who are suspicious of this new project is Professor in Adult Education Juha Suoranta, who describes country branding as a phenomenon of the age we live in: ‘This is generally a game played by the owners of the world, not something the rest of us have anything to do with,’ he says.

Having read the report, individuals working in the field of non-formal adult education argue that lifelong learning is discussed in flowery terms but from a very narrow perspective.

The success of primary schools in the Pisa survey is taken as the basis for developing Finland into an education superpower. At the same time, what is neglected is the fact that the value of lifelong learning does not purely reside in its potential to secure the country’s competitiveness on the global market.

‘The branding group forget what non-formal adult education means to active citizenship, lifelong learning, wellbeing and one’s working ability,’ argues Liisa Vornanen, Chairperson of the Finnish Association of Adult Education Centres and the Director of an Ostrobothnian adult education centre.

She reminds us that adult education centres are a community service with low entry requirements and therefore work to equalise the level of education and culture among citizens.

There are also those who have read Mission for Finland who think that non-formal adult education should be reassessed. The perspective presented on adult education is narrow because the image of this sector is poorly developed.

‘Adult education institutions have not been able to put themselves forward as developers of cultural capital,’ writer Seppo Niemelä explains. He acted as Programme Leader of the Policy Programme for Citizen Participation launched by the Ministry of Justice under the previous government.

Resources required for mobility 

The Centre for International Mobility (CIMO) nevertheless eagerly accepts the task laid before it by the country branding working group. Its mission is to build up a broad-minded and multicultural education and information society by promoting balanced and quality-rich international interaction. The adult education mobility programme Grundtvig will be an important tool in realising this aim.

Director General Pasi Sahlberg offers the reminder that ‘mobility itself is not an absolute value, but providing adult learners with the opportunity for European interaction is.’

CIMO is coordinating the Grundtvig programme in Finland. It is evident that enthusiasm for the task is tinged with concern. The branding group's mission will also require support in the form of resources targeted towards the adult education mobility action planned for the upcoming Lifelong Learning Programme (LLP) to be launched in 2014.