Highly educated immigrants’ labour market integration must be included in higher education institutions’ strategies

Many Finnish higher education institutions have provided highly educated immigrants with so-called SIMHE services that have facilitated their access to education and the labour market.

The University of Vaasa has been one of them. “There has been an extremely great need for both recruiting and integrating international experts,” says Vice-Rector Tanja Risikko.

“More than a hundred languages are spoken here, and we have the largest energy industry cluster in the Nordic countries."

While this means that workers with all levels of education is needed, there is a particular need for highly educated labour.

In Vaasa, they have been offered personal guidance, pop-up events and language paths into Finnish, Swedish and English proficiency alike. The ‘spouse programme’ for those who have entered the country as employees’ spouses, which has also offered career advice, has also been popular.

"They represent a huge potential of talented people who have come to Finland because their spouses study or work here, and they are also interested in finding jobs themselves," says Risikko.

The Finnish way of thinking of attracting highly educated people to the country may well be a bit one-sided, as it may mean forgetting about the highly educated people who are already here. Mervi Vidgrén, President at Savonia University of Applied Sciences, has also noticed this.

"A significantly higher number of immigrants who already live in Finland could use the joint application system. I think there is great potential here."

Savonia has also provided a wide range of SIMHE services.

"The guidance and advisory services familiarise immigrants with the Finnish education system, preparatory education, fast-track qualification training and normal degree education," says Vidgrén.

Taru Ruotsalainen, Manager of Lifelong Learning at Metropolia University of Applied Sciences, adds that besides providing guidance and advice, it is a good idea to build networks aimed for finding employment.

"The Career Boost programme, which was put together with the municipalities in the Helsinki Metropolitan Area, has worked well for those looking for jobs," she says. In the Career Boost programme, participants improve their vocational competence, network with employers, familiarise themselves with the Finnish world of work and strengthen their Finnish skills. Metropolia's service package for highly educated immigrants includes guidance services, solutions for supplementing competence, and cooperation in the context of networking and events.

All three higher education institutions have good networks with their regions’ companies, TE Offices and municipalities.

No more separate funding, HEI-specific strategies to the rescue

There will be no more separate funding for SIMHE work after the end of this year. The higher education institutions are now negotiating on their funding, and many are attempting to keep SIMHE-type actions in their service ranges.

"We have been building a model in which internationalisation is regarded as a comprehensive package," says Mervi Vidgrén from Savonia.

Project-based activity is always more or less periodical, and it would be better to embed these types of services in the strategy.

"Internationality is a very strong part of Savonia's strategy," says Vidgrén.

"As the ministry is now allocating strategic funding, I hope that internationality and SIMHE are one of the activities through which we can carry on the good work we have been building here."

She points out that new employment areas will also be launched at the start of next year, and Savonia has wished to be involved in influencing them, ensuring that integration issues are addressed in their work.

Taru Ruotsalainen says that while Metropolia also wants to continue SIMHE-style activities, their scale will depend on the funding. Like Savonia, Metropolia strives to create a comprehensive service package for international experts.

"It is obvious that the core funding will contain no financing for guiding highly educated immigrants."

Higher education institutions support the rest of society 

Tanja Risikko from the University of Vaasa says that the fixed-term funding has enabled higher education institutions to offer diverse support and activities that prepare immigrants for their studies. At the same time, the higher education institutions have also supported cities and other actors in tasks that are not included in HEIs’ core duties.

As the relatively scarce core funding forces the higher education institutions to prioritise their basic mission, Risikko hopes that such actions as Talent Boost and SIMHE could receive strategic funding, or some instrument could be found for them in the future to prevent the good work from going to waste.

"It is in all our interests to attract to Finland talented people who can integrate into our world of work and country," says Risikko.

She stresses that rather than being a separate island, SIMHE work has always been part of other activities.

"Our goal is to be able to integrate students into cooperation with companies in the region right at the beginning of their studies."

For example, this can be achieved by building bridges for students to find workplaces where they can produce their Bachelor’s or Master's theses, have internships and later get jobs. 

"We have a lot of international companies which do this routinely," she says, "but then there is a huge array of SMEs for which hiring their first international expert is a big step."

The SIMHE work has to a great extent been based on networking. Higher education institutions suspect that without separate funding, the network may not be quite so close-knit in the future but then again, higher education institutions have tight networks anyway. In that sense, the existing networks will live on.

"There is strength in collaborative models and they should be used", says Mervi Vidgrén. "I don't see that as being a major question of resources, but the work will probably not continue quite in the same way."

She hopes that the Finnish National Agency for Education will also continue to support networking in the future.

Language proficiency and flexibility called for

Finland needs highly educated labour, and educational institutions have collected valuable knowledge of how to get hold of it and how to boost people into the world of work.

Mervi Vidgrén says that competence could be recognised more extensively in Finland, based on not only people’s prior education and training but also experience gained in the workplace. It is not always necessary to start putting a new educational path together from a scratch.

"We also recognise such competence as part of normal education, but with this target group, it is one of the crucial things."

She notes that many of those who are already here also need to be helped to understand that it is common for both spouses to work in Finland, and that the service system also provides support for this.

Taru Ruotsalainen emphasises the importance of language proficiency. Immigrants themselves must also be willing to speak Finnish at work and during the coffee break, while employers should be prepared to take on people who do not speak the language perfectly at the start, and colleagues can also support their language learning.

Text: Esa Salminen