Dia 1

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Nurses from the Philippines - the future trend
in Finland?
Timo Karkola Director, Principal Ami Foundation,
Amiedu
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Finlands largest vocational adult educator

• Amiedu is
• owned and maintained by the Ami Foundation
• dedicated to improving the skills of individuals
  and organisations
• a full service educator
• more than 80 vocational, further vocational or
  specialist vocational qualifications
• nearly 40 professional certificates
• needs analysis for training and development
• consulting
• Amiedu key figures
• Over 18,000 adult students enrolled in 2007
• Some 350 adult education specialists and an
  extensive network of partners
• Turnover of EUR 25.5 million in 2007

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Adult education visions what will change?

• Innovation generated through novel ways of
  combining competencies.
• Business evolution traditional vertically
  managed individual companies are giving way to
  operations conducted by complex and extensive
  enterprise networks.
• Value to the client is not created through the
  service organisation process, but by the clients
  own processes.
• Instead of providing initial vocational skills
  and education, the perspective of the vocational
  adult education provider is to offer customised
  services and assistance in working community
  development.
• Institutes of learning are moving from curriculum
  orientation to a future-focused vision, and
  business and competence profile orientation,
  based on each occupational sector.
• Pressure to shorten training periods is
  increasing ? there must be a way to work and
  study in parallel.

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Seeking partnership benefits for the customer

• A single partner with in-depth understanding of
  the customers industry, operations and goals
• A customised development solution supporting
  management of strategic change
• based on the customers business objectives
• integrated content and implementation of various
  training programmes
• standardised quality and a national perspective
• Cost-effectiveness and facility
• applying various financing solutions
• outsourcing of training logistics to save time

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Training of nurses from the Philippines

• Pre-departure orientation.
• Training staff from the host organisation to
  serve as workplace guides.
• Completion of the Vocational Qualification in
  Social and Health Care (Practical Nurse) through
  competence tests in Finland.

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Competence-based Qualifications for Adults

• The worlds of work and business play a prominent
  role in planning, implementing and evaluating
  skills demonstration tests.
• Qualification committees oversee the arrangements
  for qualifications and issue qualification
  certificates.
• The national or regional qualification committee
  for each competence-based qualification
  comprises employees and employers from the
  sector, together with trainers and
  entrepreneurs.

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Can a Candidate Prepare for Skills Demonstration
Tests?

• Skills demonstration tests normally involve
  educational establishments that arrange training
  for the qualification or its modules, during
  which students demonstrate their skills through
  various practical tests.
• Preparatory training may either be voluntary or
  publicly subsidised labour market training for
  adults, in the form of an apprenticeship or
  in-service training.

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Evaluation of skills demonstration tests for
practical nurses

• Skills demonstration tests in the Growth support
  and guidance training module have been highly
  satisfactory for all nurses from the Philippines,
  with assessments of H4 - H5.
• Particular distinctions have been earned for high
  ethical standards in care work, vocational
  competence, and excellent and versatile
  communication skills. Rapid progress has been
  shown in learning the Finnish language, which
  trainees have been able to use as a medium of
  intelligible communication in care work both in
  transactions with the client and with
  colleagues.
• Students are an aide to formulating demonstration
  plans for the next skills demonstration tests
  (the Care and therapy Rehabilitation support
  modules).

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Language competence

• The students were well-disposed to language
  learning, showing confidence and a sense of
  practical purpose.
• Despite distance learning modules, the standard
  of student language competence was very
  elementary at the beginning of March.
• Students involved in pre-departure orientation
  had reached the A.1 language competence standard
  by the beginning of May.
• Studying and working in the Finnish language
  remains laborious and difficult or even
  impossible.
• Positive feedback on language skills provides
  encouragement at a crucial stage and helps the
  student to persevere. 
• However, this feedback responds to superficial
  aspects of language (pronunciation, fluency) and
  says little about linguistic competence.
• The most rapid progress occurs in specialised
  language, and level B1.1 command of the
  vocabulary, topics and functions of the care
  sector can realistically be achieved in as
  little as six months. General communicative
  competence, on the other hand, takes much longer
  to develop.

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Workplaces

• Good feedback from workplaces!
• Workplace guides are a crucially important
  resource for language learning.
• A good sense of team spirit is needed at work.
  Many are already accustomed to speaking plainly!
  
• Co-operation is important. For example language
  learning is enhanced by effective routines and
  teamwork in creating systems (explaining,
  articulating, adequate repetition of basic
  questions and stock phrases in the same terms,
  etc.)
• It is important to share information. There may
  be few shifts worked together with the workplace
  guide.
•  

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Lessons learned so far

• Foster the right attitude, learn the required
  skills.
• Multicultural training takes time, as does
  acquiring Finnish language competence.
• Excessive optimism is unwise. It is more
  realistic to expect a lengthy period of
  maturation for language skills, with reasonable
  competence ideally achieved in 8-10 months.
• Lay assessments are readily exaggerated.
• Whats newsworthy? 1,800 immigrants were involved
  in training courses in 2007, with just 8 nurses
  from the Philippines hogging nearly all of the
  headlines. ? the press sees what the press wants
  to see.

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Alternative scenarios for a vocational adult
education provider
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• An active and innovative factor in change
• A mainstream centre of excellence
• A resource for maintaining flexibility and a
  service provider
• revolution or evolution ?

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For further information

• Vocational adult education and training
• for the Helsinki Metropolitan Area
• Timo Karkola
• Director, Principal
• Ami Foundation, Amiedu
• Valimotie 8
• PO Box 151, FI-00381 Helsinki
• Finland
• Tel [phone]
• mobile [phone]
• timo.karkola_at_amiedu.fi
• www.amiedu.fi