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What's Hot in Frozen Finland?

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What's Hot in Frozen Finland? WHAT’S HOT IN FROZEN FINLAND? A visit studying the reforms in Finnish public administration and education policy and exploring the cultural enablers behind them by Anna Kanakaki Thinkstockphotos.gr INTRODUCTION The study visit to Finland was organised in the framework of the EU funded Network Public Administration and Governance with participants from the EC and Belgium, Czech Republic, Hungary, Greece, Belgium, Croatia, Slovakia, Bulgaria and Ukraine. It focused on the entire chain of governmental strategic management in Finland, using the education sector as a case to understand how the national strategy is translated into specific policies. We explored the ways the Government office is using foresight to formulate strategic objectives, how these include policy experiment as well as other ways of policy development. In addition, we examined the general overview of the Finnish educational sector and policy, how this is affected by a government-wide strategy and how this reaches out to the street-level services. A true study visit should not only record the “what” and the “who” of the accomplishments, it mainly focuses on the “why” and “how” to get a deeper insight into the enablers behind the accomplishments. Some of the questions remained unanswered. However, as long as we continue to ask such difficult questions and keep searching for answers we are bound to be on a worthy journey. This report starts with the context - a few important aspects of Finland's culture, history and language, which might prove essential in understanding the enablers of this country’s governance and public administration. It continues with the key elements of each level of governance we had the chance to explore, as well as its perspectives and challenges for the future. Furthermore, this report is an invitation to expand our way of thinking and perceptions on governance. Spoiler alert! The “Finnish success story” has a long history and it is far from being “finished”, it has just started and a huge potential for further achievements is already evident! 1 THE BIGGER PICTURE A GLANCE ON FINLAND'S HISTORY, CULTURE, LANGUAGE & GOVERNANCE he first thing one should know about Finland is that it is NOT a Scandinavian country, it is just situated in the neighbourhood, minding its own high-performing business. By the end of this T report this should be clear. Although the area has been populated since pre-historic times, the Finns lived under the realm of other nations struggling for independence until the 19th century, when Finland was created as a nation-state under the Russian Empire. A country with a fragile 100 years old history of independence, where the three major threats were once summarized by its foreign minister as being "Russia, Russia, and Russia". Only a generation later, a Civil War in 1918 left a collective trauma on the newly born nation, still searching for its identity. The civil war led also to a massive emigration to USA and substantial internal migration to the cities. Miraculously, Finns united in defending their country when attacked by the Soviet Union in 1939-40 (the Winter War). A new trauma was suffered 50 years later, in the early nineties, when the country was hit by an economic crisis resulting in vast loss of jobs and impoverishment, curved in Finn’s collective memory as the “Great Depression”. Since WWII the population moved from rural areas and work in the agrarian sector to urban cities and work in the industry and services (more than 60% of the population live in Finland's 4 largest cities). This transition is described to have happened in a highly accelerated pace, forcing society to an unprecedented evolution. Mass schooling is one of its effects, since the labour market changed dramatically its demand towards skilled workers and knowledge based work. This trend kept going for the next decades. Nowadays, almost 2/3 of the youngsters aim to obtain a University degree, while in the same rate their grandparents were absolutely satisfied with an elementary certificate. According to the National Statistics Agency… The Finnish population of 5,2 mln is mostly inhabiting the rural areas of Tampere, Turku, Oulu, Jyväskylä and Lahti, while the capital Helsinki has gathered almost 15-20% of it. Almost 82% of the population belongs to the Lutheran Church of Finland and 15% has no religious affiliations. With 15,6 capita per square kilometre, Finland is struggling with really low population density. The number of mobile cellular subscription per 100 habitants is more than 172, while that of Internet users reaches as high as 92 per 100 habitants. With over 100 thousand islands, scattered among the 4 main archi- pelagos off Finland's coast, the country is struggling with geographical isolation and really harsh climate. 2 THE CULTURE Due to its geographical and political location, Finland has always been a country on the border between the East and West. Eastern elements are omnipresent - in language, traditions, cuisine and even in its administrative culture. Finns are peace-loving, tolerant, law-abiding and self-constrained people. Crime is rather low (less than 1,5 intentional homicides per 100.000 people). As humorously Finland was seen in the past as a pointed by Finns “on Kauppatari market, one is more “legalistic” society where regulation was likely to be attacked by a food-steeling seagull, than the preferred vehicle for change and to be robbed or pick pocked”. The structure of the lawyers and socials scientists do not meet. state, the ethics and rules resemble Eastern administration and could be compared with countries like Japan, Estonia and Korea. In fact, for a certain period of time Finland and Estonia were treated by OECD researchers as one “zone”, titling unofficially the Joint Finland – Estonia Report ….“The FINEST”(!). According to Wolfgang Drechsler’s book “Halduskultuur- Administrative Culture” (2009), Finnish people have a strong tradition of collective action with a strong involvement of the people. Finns are very practical, oriented towards finding solutions, focusing on people, not on systems. Rules are not considered to have an absolute value. They consider themselves “a nation of planners”. If there's one characteristic that applies to almost all Finns, its extreme modesty. Finns don't brag about their own achievements; often they don't even mention them. Equality is built in Finnish society. Although very precise about academic, honouring and professional titles, Finns rarely mention these when introducing themselves, following a social norm for humility. Finns score low (33/100) In Hofstede Power-relations cultural criterion, indicating There are 3,5 Million saunas in Finland, that demonstration of power and discriminations are almost 66 per 100 inhabitants. Finns use it not well accepted by this society. Even children are several times per week all around the greeted by handshake, as adults. Exchanging ideas as year. equals in an adult-youngster, teacher-student or top manager – worker conversation is not uncommon for the Finnish society. The nation’s favourite habit – the sauna and sauna-related rituals - induce further equality and humbleness. In 2013, Readers Digest ranked Helsinki as the most honest city among 16, after dropping in each one 12 wallets and counting returns. Eleven returns announced the Finnish capital as the undoubtable winner of this social experiment. Another unique feature of the Finnish culture is its famous affiliation to metal music, holding a world record with more Source: Hofstede Institute, https://www.hofstede-insights.com than 54 bands per 100.000 habitants. The dark winter and hardship perhaps play a 3 role in this attachment to suicidal lyrics, double bass drum, and the colour black. In the same time, Finns are avid readers and users of public libraries with a norm of 16 books per capita yearly1. There is a public library in every municipality (291 in total), most of them also have branch libraries (465) and mobile units – the bookmobiles (142). ENTREPRENEURSHIP AND INNOVATION Entrepreneurship is quite advanced in Finnish society and it has been so historically. Finnish born politician Anders Chydenius published his book “The National Gain” in 1765. (11 years before Adam Smith’s Wealth of Nations). Nowadays, Finland occupies the third position in the Global Competitiveness Index, after Switzerland and Singapore. When the World Economic Forum ranked countries according to how good their work force is, Finland had the second best workers in the world, right after Switzerland. Finns are leaders in inventions and IT entrepreneurship. According to the Finnish Invention Foundation, the Finnish population of six million people make around 15.000 inventions every year. Back in time, Finns invented IRC - the first chat protocol, the first Internet browser with user Interface called ERWISE, the first wireless hard rate monitor, the electric solar sail. Apart from NOKIA industry, Finns take pride of their top performance in software developers with their Linus Torvalds (LINUX operation system) , Tatu Ylönen (inventor of the SSR-the universal tool for computer administration) and top ranking mobile apps, among which is the famous Angry Birds, already surpassing 2 billion downloads. According to the European Innovation Score- board, since 2010 Finland stands out among the three best performing countries, leading inno- vation in Europe and worldwide. This is due mainly to its well educated human resources, Innovation- friendly environment, and attractive research systems, as the country report suggests2 . Moreover, Finland has also improved its talent indicators and in 2017 claimed the fifth spot in the annual IMD World Talent Ranking3. It is no surprise that Finland is at fourth place in the IMD Digital Competitiveness ranking, by excelling in know- ledge, technology and future readiness in meeting the challenges of digitalisation. 1 Library Statistics Finland 2014, https://www.libraries.fi/statistics 2 European Innovation Scoreboard, Country Report 2017, http://ec.europa.eu/docsroom/documents/23918 3 https://www.imd.org/news/updates/european-economies-best-at-recruiting-and-retaining-top-talent-says- imd-study/ 4 THE LANGUAGE The way one speaks is formulating the way one thinks.
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