Venturing through the historic streets (and the snow) of the Baltic States and Finland, each step brought me closer to an educational revelation – one that I found nestled in the heart of Helsinki at its prestigious university.
The University of Helsinki, creating and passing on knowledge since 1640, opened its doors to an exceptional session that not only captured my attention, but also resonated with the pioneering research of Vincent Tinto.
It’s a name that keeps popping up as I conduct my research on examining the impact that student support services have on student success within higher education.
History and innovation
The University of Helsinki, originally founded in Turku and deeply rooted in its Swedish heritage, is probably Finland’s most famous university.
With 30,000 degree students, of which 6 per cent are international, the university is a pot of diverse cultures and thoughts. It offers 33 bachelor programs and 63 master’s degrees, 36 of which are taught in English – so the institution is not just an academic powerhouse in Finland, but respected globally too.
The session that stuck with me the most wasn’t just another academic presentation. It was a deep dive into student involvement in academic development led by the university’s academic strategy team.
This isn’t about students passively receiving knowledge, but rather being architects of their own progress.
This is also something that Vincent Tinto, the renowned higher education researcher, believes. His theories on student success and retention put emphasis on how students need to stay engaged and be fully integrated into their institution’s learning experience as well as its social system.
In this session, the University of Helsinki showed us how they do exactly that to help students thrive, demonstrating how active student involvement is key to their academic triumphs.
One word I’ll never forget from this session is “bildung” – which transcends simple education – it’s about merging education and knowledge so people can grow in society. At Helsinki, this word isn’t just something they say – it’s something they live by in every aspect of their educational model.
Freedom and responsibility
Sustainability isn’t just a buzzword here – it’s a core value. The university’s focus on sustainable practices in education is not just about environmental consciousness but also about creating sustainable, long-lasting educational models that adapt and evolve with time.
In its Philosophy of Teaching, which was recently reviewed jointly with the SU, students have
the freedom and responsibility to make choices and affect their own study path. Students are “active and responsible members of the academic community”, who are “taken into consideration as individuals”, and “their contribution is valued in all university operations.”
The university says that it is one of the most essential social institutions conducting scientific research, but that it also constitutes a “socially important learning environments”, and that to serve this purpose, its operations “must be transparent and the learning environment interactively developed continuously on the basis of internal and external feedback”.
These aren’t just warm words. Diverse forms of feedback are collected and utilised in the development of teaching. Feedback culture at the university is dialogic and enhances the interaction between teachers and students. And it strives to make sure that feedback providers – often students – understand how it affects the development of teaching.
We’d seen in Estonia how its national university – the University of Tartu – requires students to complete module feedback, publishes all the results on its intranet, and shows students the difference that that feedback has made. In Helsinki, that’s taken a step further, with encouragement to take part in both national, institutional and programme based feedback as well as ideas creation. But it was the participation part that was most impressive.
Students at the helm
What sets the University of Helsinki apart is its emphasis on student representation. Hundreds of students actively participate in shaping university policy. Students sit alongside senior members – not just as spectators but as equal contributors to the university’s future. This level of involvement is rare and speaks volumes about the institution’s commitment to truly student-centred learning.
For the reps – all of whom are appointed by panels from the SU’s council – the university offers both academic accreditation (in the form of ECTS credits that count towards their degree) for involvement in academic development, and pay.
So-called “student tutors” – hundreds of whom, having been trained by the SU, guide new students in small groups from before the start of the year through to the end of it – get accreditation and pay too.
This initiative not only enhances students’ academic credentials but also fosters a strong sense of belonging and involvement. It’s about recognising and valuing the contributions students make outside the traditional realms of classroom learning.
And in a recent review of student representation, they’re going further still. Faculties will have to prepare a plan to boost student participation and provide their own training for student representatives to complement the SU’s. The degree programme director will have to meet new student reps to introduce them to the practices of the programme steering group. Steering group (committee) work will be considered an acceptable reason for student reps’ absence from classes. The agenda of steering group meetings will include an item for matters relevant to students.
Students will be actively included in preparatory work – avoiding the “fait accompli” of a paper or policy that it’s too late to influence. Student reps will even be assured that they are not responsible for consulting all students – instead, they express their views as elected representatives, and can propose that survey, focus group or other research work is carried out – as well as monitoring programme and national survey results.
Representatives of subject-specific clubs and societies will be encouraged to come to steering group meetings when obtaining a broader student perspective on the matter considered is central to the discussion. After each meeting, the steering group has to write a newsletter or short message on key matters discussed at the meeting and those to be considered at the next meeting.
And after the end of the student representatives’ term of office, the steering group will thank them for their work publicly to highlight the importance of the representatives’ work and its significance for the faculty.
As I left the University of Helsinki, I was struck by the realisation that what we had just listened to was more than just an academic session.
It was a glimpse into the future of education – a model that other institutions could learn from and emulate. The University of Helsinki is not just teaching its students, it’s engaging them, empowering them, and most importantly, preparing them to thrive not just as professionals but as global citizens.
