The study trip was tailored to the group by Stella Yuxing Ikonen, Senior Adviser of Internationalisation and Business Operations at TAMK. IKDE Foundation is a family association of Doctor Endjun with a mission to educate Indonesian children. The foundation has their own preschool, primary school and junior high school in Indonesia.
Finnish maternity and child health services an area of interest
The Chairman Addie Yunadi and his wife Wenyana Sabardini (Wiwik) had already visited Finland before and got to know the Finnish education. This time they came with management level employees including an HR director, a curriculum design expert and healthcare experts. The goal was to learn more about Finnish education and healthcare system in practice.
Their interest was to apply the Finnish methods into their local context. They were especially interested in the Finnish maternity and child health services (Neuvola) and support for new mothers and young children in the first 1000 days of a baby’s life.
Throughout their short visit, the group visited two elementary schools, a kindergarten, a general upper secondary school and Tampere University of Applied Sciences where they learnt more about the Finnish education by talking to Finnish teachers, students and staff.
Inspiring school visits
The week started with a visit to Tampere University Teacher Training School where the group had a chance to observe classes, discuss with teachers and rectors and cruise around with students from the school.
The visit at Tampere University of Applied Sciences was rich and surprising. In the morning, the group had a deep discussion about Finnish education with Carita Prokki, Director of Internationalisation and Business Operations. The afternoon discussion about Finnish healthcare and the famous Finnish maternity and child health services system (Neuvola) was led by TAMK senior lectures Elisa Airikkala and Mari Laaksonen. They introduced the Finnish maternity and child health education and practices. Surprisingly, Elisa Airikkala has worked in Indonesia establishing a Finnish style maternity clinic, and she introduced her work in extremely fluent Indonesian language!
The last day of the group’s study trip was spent in Lempäälä, a municipality in Tampere region. There, the group visited Pilke Playschool Lempäälä, a small and warm English-speaking kindergarten. The group learnt about Finnish early childhood education by observing a morning activity and discussing with the kindergarten manager and the teachers.
During the visit to Lempoinen Primary School they learnt from Ari Perälä, Vice Rector of Lempoinen Primary School about Finnish primary education and special needs education. Thanks to Ari, the group had the chance to join and observe a special education class and the modern learning facilities at Lempoinen Primary School and Kanava Secondary School.
The IKDE Foundation group was extremely satisfied with the quality of the study trip and what they experienced during the week. They expressed wishes to continue the cooperation in the form of long-term teacher training programmes with TAMK.
TAMK Global Education organises study trips and short courses for TAMK’s international partners.
More information: Yue Wang, Senior Advisor at TAMK Global Education, yue.wang@tuni.fi.
Text: Stella Yuxing Ikonen
Picture: Stella Yuxing Ikonen
