Ministry of Education develops cooperation with Finland in education
The First Deputy Minister of Education, Dmitry Glushko held a working meeting with the Ambassador Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary of the Republic of Finland to the Russian Federation, Antti Helanterä. During the meeting, the parties exchanged experience in organizing school education in the context of the pandemic and discussed possible areas for further cooperation between the countries in the field of education.
Dmitry Glushko said that the Ministry of Education was ready to prepare proposals for the development of cooperation in the field of studying the Russian and Finnish languages on a reciprocal basis.
“In the Russian Federation and in Finland there are a large number of people for whom Russian and Finnish are their native languages, languages that help to conduct business and implement various projects, including humanitarian ones. Therefore, we should expand our joint work in this area, ”he said.
Over the past three years, the number of Finnish language learners in Russian educational institutions has tripled. Now, within the educational programs, about 7 thousand people are studying Finnish. This, among other things, is facilitated by the developed educational programs in the Finnish language within the subjects "Native language", "Literary reading in the native language", "Native literature".
In addition, the Russian Party discussed the development of international exchange programs for schoolchildren, including for training in the All-Russian children's centers and Artek International Children's Center.
In turn, the Finnish Party expressed interest in cooperation and exchange of experience in the field of vocational education. Sari Eriksson, Counselor of the Embassy of the Republic of Finland in the Russian Federation for Higher Education and Science, noted the high level of organization of the 45th WorldSkills Championships took place in 2019 in Kazan.
Dmitry Glushko stressed that the development of vocational education is one of the priority areas of the Ministry's work. He pointed to the great potential of cooperation between the two countries in this area including on implementation of educational programs and advanced training of college teachers. According to him, a successful, productive interaction had already been established between the national operators of WorldSkills of Russia and Finland - WorldSkills Union of Russia and Skills Finland. In 2023, the EuroSkills Championship will take place in St. Petersburg.
“Realizing that now we need short programs for formation of professional competencies for people of different ages, last year we retrained 25 thousand people over 50, as well as 110 thousand people who have lost their jobs or experiencing problems with employment. These programs help people adapt to new conditions quickly, be mobile in the labor market, ”said the First Deputy Minister of Education.