Education Export in Basic Education in Finland : South Korean Elementary Pupils’ Positive and Challenging Experiences

Abstract

Nowadays more and more governments consider internationally competitive education as an asset, which is also reflected in a growing interest in education export branding in Finland. Education export in general can be defined as a selling transaction of educational services and practices between countries. This article presents a pilot education export project, interlocked with a research approach, towards developing basic education export in Finland. The paper shares the experiences of ten South Korean pupils during their educational visit within the education export “Happy Learning in Outokumpu Project”. A bottom-up methodological approach based on the transversal competences concept was utilized. The findings from the analysis of narrative semi-structured interviews depicting positive and challenging experiences offered us information and tools for improving future educational export projects specific to basic education.