Akava’s agenda for the parliamentary elections in 2027: Without expertise, Finland will come to a halt
President of Akava Maria Löfgren stresses, that Finland needs a vision for the future that is based on competence and education. This means, for example, ensuring core funding for higher education, RDI investments and an increase in the number of starting places in higher education institutions.
Finland needs a vision for the future that is based on competence and education. This means, for example, ensuring core funding for higher education, RDI investments and an increase in the number of starting places in higher education institutions.
Who: Maria Löfgren, President of Akava
What: Education and expertise are the cornerstones of economic growth and employment.
Akava’s goal for the parliamentary elections is to ensure the availability of a skilled and educated labour force in Finland. A greater share of the younger generations must be brought into the sphere of higher education in order for Finland to catch up to other countries.
Currently, 39 per cent of the young people in Finland receive a higher education degree. President of Akava Maria Löfgren says the percentage should be at least 50% and rise to as high as 60%.
“In comparison to other OECD countries, Finland is near the tail end. In OECD countries, the average number of young people with a higher education degree is around 48%. While this percentage has risen in many countries, it has dropped in Finland. This is the wrong direction”, she states.
According to Löfgren, Finland does not have sufficient resources for higher education and research. When examining the resources, the path chosen by Finnish decision-makers is quite different from the average in other OECD countries.
“At the beginning of the 21st century, Finland’s direction looked promising, but now it’s slowly going the wrong way.”
Over the past ten years, the per-student expenditure of higher education institutions in Finland has been negative (-13.5%), while the OECD average and their financial investments have been on the plus side (+8.6%).
Increasing resources would facilitate access to higher education studies.
“We still have too many blind spots and aren’t able to provide access to everyone who wants to get in. Resources also affect the number of degrees that are completed”, Löfgren says.
The vision of the future rests on a high level of competence
According to Löfgren, working life and the skills required at work are constantly changing. Technological development and artificial intelligence are also presenting challenges for today’s working life.
Akava’s primary message for the parliamentary elections is that without expertise, Finland will come to a halt. Löfgren explains that this message emphasises the importance of human capital. This has been recognised, for example, by the Bank of Finland, which regularly calculates and assesses how education, competence and experience acquired at work affect and bring value to the overall national economy.
Akava’s primary message for the parliamentary elections is that without expertise, Finland will come to a halt.
“If we don’t get the share of highly educated young people to increase, it will have a direct impact on our GDP. We should be creating products and services based on a high level of competence and added value, but the ability to create them depends on the quality of higher education we provide and how many young people have access to it.”
Löfgren points out that Akava indeed understands that the sustainability of our welfare society as well as EU fiscal rules require a halt in the growth of public debt. At the same time, however, it is important for Finland to look further as a society and set a vision for success in the future.
“Akava’s vision emphasises higher education and high-quality research. This is how we ensure the level of competence of our society, which is essential for sustainable growth.”
“We understand that there are no large increases in funding to be found all of a sudden, but it is possible to reallocate existing public funds, for example, to higher education and research. For instance, companies currently receive the majority of RDI funding and higher education institutions are left with crumbs.”
The ways of working are changing and work is increasingly relying on expert and knowledge work. Employees are having to find ways to manage their own work more independently.
More detailed legislation is needed to manage the psychosocial workload
“Despite this, issues related to occupational safety and well-being at work still continue to focus largely on physical load factors.”
Akava’s major goal for working life is to better prevent and manage the psychosocial workload in the workplace, which inevitably relates to expert work.
“This is an issue that is directly linked to management as well as to the coping ability and responsibilities of supervisors. Every workplace should understand that psychosocial load factors and the management thereof require just as much attention and investments as physical load factors.”
According to Löfgren, prevention and management are highly important when it comes to, for example, work pace, the internalisation of goals and other management elements. The functioning of the work community, team spirit and a good discussion culture are also a vital part of ensuring a functional environment.
“Autocratic leadership doesn’t suit expert work at all, because an expert needs a certain amount of freedom to be creative. We should be able to identify those factors that would facilitate the work of experts.”
The current Act on Occupational Safety and Health already obliges employers to manage psychosocial loading. Is Akava asking for new legislation that specifically focuses on the issue of psychosocial workload in more detail?
“That’s exactly what we’re talking about. More explicit and precise regulation is needed. Some workplaces are very competent when it comes to work ability management. In other places, however, there is a lack of skills or willingness to invest in workload management.”
Löfgren points out that other Nordic countries manage psychosocial loading better, either through legislation or collective agreements.
According to Löfgren, the management of psychosocial loading is directly linked to Akava’s main goal, which is to increase expertise, since Finland will come to a halt without it.
“When there are too many load factors, competence and the ability to learn new things suffer. Loading and stress are directly linked to work productivity and creativity.”
Löfgren wonders about the polarisation within the remote work debate.
“The fact is that remote work is here to stay, and it would make sense for every workplace to agree on specific rules for remote work and hybrid work.”
Other parliamentary election goals of Akava
- New method of targeting RDI funding: greater capitalisation of higher education institutions, which would enable them to increase their own funding as a result of the yield from their RDI activities.
- Allocation of public funds to permanent core funding for higher education institutions in order to safeguard infrastructure and human resources.
- Review of the funding model of higher education institutions: employment of graduates as one funding criterion, reduction of unnecessary sectoral overlap so that higher education institutions can focus on their own strengths.
- More active participation of business and industry in the funding of higher education institutions. High-quality research that benefits business life cannot be obtained for free.
- Education should be synchronised to the real needs of working life. The facilitating of low-cost degrees that lead to poor employment possibilities must be addressed.
- Criminalisation of targeted harassment. The targeted harassment directed at officials in public service, research professionals and the media undermines democracy.
Read Akava’s parliamentary election goals
Text Iida Ylinen
Photos Veikko Somerpuro