Dan Murphy visits local school students preparing to do business with the world.
To prosper in today’s business environment companies need a global outlook. Nowhere is this better understood than in Oulu, with its technology parks dotted around suburbs full of high-tech firms selling their innovations to the world.
Now even Oulu’s schools are getting in on this trend. A local school is piloting a new qualification which adds an international dimension to business and marketing studies.
Oulu Vocational College (OSAO, or Oulun Seudun Ammattiopisto) admitted the first students to its Vocational Qualification in Business and Administration, International Programme in 2004. Teething problems, including having to deal with a higher than anticipated dropout rate, have been overcome and last spring the first students graduated.
The programme is now well established and all classes are running at or near capacity. It is also trialling the International Baccalaureate Career-related Certificate. This is an initiative of the International Baccalaureate designed to, in the words of its mission statement, give more students ‘the intellectual, personal, emotional and social skills to live, learn and work in a rapidly globalizing world’. The International Baccalaureate is currently used in 2,213 schools in 125 countries. The OSAO is part of the pilot programme for the new certificate with schools in Australia, Canada, Hong Kong, Dubai, USA and the UK.
‘Finland is Changing’ “What is extra in this international programme is that we try to help the students develop intercultural skills,” says Elina Kast, English teacher and programme coordinator.
“Finland is changing and Oulu is changing and these students will become competent working in multicultural settings.”
Fifty per cent of classes are conducted in English which is, as Kast points out, developing another very useful international business skill.
“I think language is a tool for young people, so they might be able to go abroad and work for a while and understand different cultures.”
To meet International Baccalaureate criteria, students must take a critical thinking course, complete a project reflecting on business ethics and perform community service. Some have chosen to do the latter through involvement with the City of Oulu’s Expatriate Family Adjustment scheme.
Henry Ylisirnio, 17, is organising football matches for people new to the town. As well as taking on responsibility for planning and running the activity, he is meeting people from abroad and improving his spoken English. He is enjoying his studies and hopes they will help him find work abroad some day.
“I think of working in the US or England, doing PR for companies,” Henry tells me as we chat in one of the well equipped study rooms at OSAO’s modern Kaukovainio campus. “I think working for a car company would be my dream - I’m working on it.”
While most students have, like Henry, come to the programme following comprehensive school, others have taken a more complicated route.
Business and Culture Born in Afghanistan, Ahmed Amani, 22, moved to Russia with his family when he was seven and two years later to Ukraine. After 12 years there he resettled in Finland with the help of the United Nations. He has been in Oulu since 2005 and was part of last September’s intake to the programme.
“In the beginning it was really hard for me and I was thinking I would not be able to survive here, because of the language,” he says, recalling those difficult early days in his new home town. “But after two months I was already doing a Finnish language course and it is a good thing I was able to find this programme.”
Ahmed is working on becoming more accustomed to the local business culture, something he has already learned the importance of.
“We were visited by a professor from Wales who told us how, if you are doing business in an Asian country or Russia - or anywhere - the most important thing is to first understand their culture.”
To this end the college provides financial assistance to students travelling abroad to fulfill their 20 week on-the-job learning requirement.
After finishing the Vocational Qualification in Business and Administration, International Programme students are ready to work in customer services and marketing or may choose to continue their studies at a university.
Having now established their programme, Elina Kast and her crew will continue offering local students the opportunity to receive a well rounded education which will prepare them for doing business in the modern world.
Admission to the programme takes place through the national joint application system. Student selection is based on previous study record and the results of entrance exams.
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Dan Murphy visits local school students preparing to do business with the world.