Brahe Education Centre has worked to develop pathways from vocational secondary education to higher education. The national objective is that 50% of the young age group will have higher education qualifications by 2030. To achieve this, an increasing number of students from vocational education need to continue to higher education.
About five years ago, Brahe Education Centre made a strategic choice to be among the first Finnish secondary schools to develop pathways from secondary to higher education. Brahe Education Centre was able to anticipate future skills needs and made higher education pathways a visible development area alongside employment pathways.
In the same context, Brahe also took on a regional role in the deeper and more intensive development of higher education in the sub-region. The development work started as an ESF project. Higher education work was concentrated on the Multi-campus model, the idea being that smaller towns should make use of the existing infrastructure and good business networks of secondary education providers to develop higher education cooperation. The multi-campus model of the Brahe Education Centre has later been extended to other sub-regional towns.
These strategic employment and further education pathway objectives of the Brahe Education Centre have supported the national objectives of aiming for 50% of the young age group to have higher education qualifications by 2030.
Building Multi-campus Ecosystem
In the first phase, Brahe Education Centre brought together the region’s major companies, business and public actors to form a higher education team, which has continued to operate regularly since then. The team carried out a survey of businesses in the region, which provided information on higher education needs. The survey revealed that the greatest need in the region was for mechanical engineers, civil and construction engineers and IT specialists. There was also a need for nurses.
Brahe Education Centre discussed with several different universities of applied sciences in Northern Finland about building different models of cooperation and it was already decided at this stage to start a Multi-campus cooperation with several universities of applied sciences. The cooperation was started with Kajaani University of Applied Sciences and the first degree was in civil and construction engineering. The first higher education degree in Raahe was a success and, encouraged by this, the range of degrees offered by Raahe region’s Multi-campus has since been developed for several different fields of study and also for multiform / hybrid and daytime education.
In just over five years, the region has attracted over 200 higher education students, a number that is growing year on year, and in total more than 400 students have started in multiform / hybrid or daytime education.
Pathways from secondary to higher education
Alongside the degree-oriented higher education programmes brought to the region, Brahe Education Centre has developed, in cooperation with several different higher education partners, pathways from secondary to higher education.
The first pathway was in the games sector, where Brahe’s students were able to complete higher education studies alongside their secondary studies, thus enabling a smooth transition from secondary education directly to higher education. Since then, the pathways have been extended to all sectors of Brahe, namely engineering, services, creative industries and natural resources.
Currently, there is cooperation with several different higher education institutions, of which Kajaani University of Applied Sciences, Oulu University of Applied Sciences, Centria University of Applied Sciences and Lapland University of Applied Sciences are important partners. New university and polytechnic pathways are being planned all the time with different higher education partners. The aim of Brahe is that all fields of study in the education centre will have pathway studies with a higher education partners by 2025 at the latest.
Students will be able to complete their pathway studies during their secondary education. Brahe has also organized support for students in areas such as mathematics. After completing the pathway studies during secondary education, the student can move directly after graduation to continue his/her studies at the University of Applied Sciences. In this way, we smooth the transition of students to higher education, avoid unnecessary gaps and contribute to Finland’s higher education goal. Brahe’s aim is to continue to educate people for working life, entrepreneurship and further studies. These are all excellent career paths for which vocational education and training provides the foundation.
Johanna Järvi studied for a vocational qualification in media and visual expression at Brahe Education Centre and simultaneously completed pathway studies in fine arts. After graduating with her vocational qualification, she continued directly to higher education at Lapland University of Applied Sciences. Photo: Saija Pönkkö
Text by Jaana Ritola
The author is the principal of Brahe Education Centre and the director of the education and training consortium