Immigrants to Higher Education: A Policy Analysis

Abstract

As response to the increasing number of immigrants arriving and residing in Finland, on September 2011, by law the Finnish government sets focus points for integration of immigrants for its four-year term. The first Integration Programme was set by former Prime Minister Katainen’s Government on September 2012, continued by Prime Minister Sipilä’s Governments programme for the years 2016 – 2019.

This research reviews previous studies on policy analysis, higher education policies and immigration in the Finnish context. There is great anticipation on decision makers’ capability finding solutions to ideological tensions between the national and international roles of higher education institutions. The framework of political situation, higher education institutions structure, political-strategic and budgetary decision-making measure Finland’s competence to respond to the challenge in using higher education as path to integrate the immigrants residing in Finland.

After the document analysis, this research found out that that despite higher education is one of the main reason for immigration influx to Finland, the purpose of international programmes’ is strongly market-oriented and the current policies do not support international students’ employment through higher education.