Higher Education Reforms in Finland : From a Ponderous to a More Agile System?

Abstract

Finland has implemented several higher education (HE) reforms over the past decades in order to make its HE system more competitive in the global educational markets. These reforms are in line with the developments in other Western higher education systems in which the transposition of principles and philosophy from the private sector into the public sector has become more common or even a norm thus reinterpreting the economic, social and cultural basis of higher education (e.g. Exworthy & Halford 1999). Furthermore, the implementation of the reforms is a response to the rapidly changing needs of the labour markets. In Finland, Bologna process was partly incorporated to be part of the reactions to these needs especially in the form of degree reform and efforts to improve quality of higher education. (Välimaa, Hoffman & Huusko 2006).