Finland’s public bodies have favoured transparent and equal tendering procedures in the awarding of public contracts for years. As more immigrants enter the country, the Ministry of Economic Affairs and Employment has carried out a competitive bidding process for determining which institutions will be allowed to provide integration training.
The bidding criteria have been criticised, however, as three-quarters of the evaluation is determined by price and only one-quarter quality.
Päivi Lyhykäinen, an immigration specialist with the OAJ teachers’ union, says the constant tendering procedure undermines the development of education in Finland and breaks up existing cooperation networks with area employers.
Integration training providers are forced to keep their focus in the short term, she argues, citing Arffman Consulting, the firm that won the tender in Helsinki before it had even acquired teaching facilities or teachers.
“The tender creates a ridiculous amount of work for Finland’s educational institutions. Many things about the process have also been unclear for years in several locations. In places where the local ELY Centres have emphasized quality, traditional training schools have been chosen, but in regions where price is the deciding factor, private firms have tended to win out,” she says.
Integration training is currently detached from other training options in Finland. OAJ would like to see it named a vocational training alternative along like any other, carried out by learning institutions that have been granted permission to provide instruction from the authorities.
Moving beyond language lessons
The ministry’s immigration director Sonja Hämäläinen says the ministry commissioned a report several years ago that discovered no reason why the tendering procedure should be abandoned.
“We carried out a quality evaluation and gathered student feedback, and there was no indication that there would have been any noteworthy quality issues,” she says.
“I understand the criticism that recurring bidding complicates long-term planning. On the other hand, the tendering provides an advantage because the backgrounds of immigrants vary and we have an eclectic group of providers to choose from each year. In this way, we are able to utilise a wide variety of different integration training models,” says Hämäläinen.
She said that all integration training in Finland is closely monitored and all providers are obliged to comply with the curriculum drawn up by the National Board of Education.
Competitive bidding will continue, but new models are soon to be introduced. The intention is to either enrich language courses with vocational instruction or add volunteer, apprenticeship or online studies to supplement the classroom work.
Ilkka Haahtela, Helsinki’s migration and employment manager, says the city has started a separately-funding trial whereby immigrants study Finnish in the morning and work in a vocational workshop environment during the afternoon.
“If integration is focused on language retention alone, it ends up being a very slow route. Many clever individuals could potentially strike out on their own and start vocational studies, learning Finnish as they go,” he says.