Bringing quality education to developing countries

The world through the United Nations committed itself to achieving several goals for defended international development. Most of the goals were aimed at improving the developing or third world particularly. The goals were also around socio-economic development such as education for all, poverty elimination and acceptable basic health standards for all by 2020. Resources, finances, time and skills have been contributed towards the fulfillment of these aspirations particularly by leaders of developed economies. The goals were also unique in that they had to be ‘sustainable’ or they had to be maintained at a certain level, to be upheld and by all signatories. They are not just events but would have lifelong transformative power to the social fabrics of the globe.

Existent global challenges have long included lack of basic education for children, particularly in developing countries. The value attached to education as a foundational pre-requisite for human development, has not been shared by all. Some societies do not value or prioritise the need for education, especially that of the girl child. Countries such as Finland have made significant progress towards the attainment of sustainable development. Finland is well known for its quality education system and has been classified as a country with the best education system. Finland is also involved in exporting quality education to developing countries such as Uganda and Rwanda through different NGOs like Finn Church Aid and other educational organisations.

Finn Church Aid (FCA) in cooperation with education export company, Omnia Education Partnerships (OEP) exports Finnish Vocational diplomas to Uganda. These diplomas are official Finnish Vocational Diploma which is equal to the Finnish Secondary degree diploma. The training program takes place in refugee settlement in Uganda. The first set of graduates received the Finnish entrepreneurship diploma on March 28,2019 at the Rwamwanja refugee settlement. According to the Director of International Cooperation at FCA the program is excellent because refugees can acquire a diploma in refugee centers which enables them find employment while displaced and eventually reduces dependency on aid from FCA (Finn Church Aid, 2019).

The above accomplishment by FCA and OEP is attain due to the legislation that came into force in Finland in 2018, because of this, all vocational education providers can export vocation education either as complete diploma programmes or as parts of them. Further, the reform is an essential step forward for the export of Finnish education, and a new method of sustainable development cooperation and this supports refugees to pursue their livelihood (Finn Church Aid, 2019).

Finland also exports quality teacher training education to South Africa as in the case of the Funda Ujabule School established on the University of Johannesburg campus in Soweto six years ago through cooperation between the University of Johannesburg and the class teachers who supervise teaching practice at the Viikki (Helsinki, Finland) Teacher Training School.

Exporting education into developing countries is one of the significant methods of solving global challenges. However, differences in societies pose as a problem as in the case of the Finnish educational system that cannot be exported to Africa without adjustments. In the case of exporting Finnish comprehensive school where families have diverse expectations of school practices, it will require a change of pupils, their parents and even the teachers which is impossible. (https://www.helsinki.fi/en/news/teaching-studying-at-the-university/jari-lavonen-the-finnish-education-system-cannot-be-copied-but-parts-of-it-can-be-exported)

In the domain of exporting higher education to Africa which has been under-developed with low priority for the past two decades, not leaving out the lack of access to higher education by the relevant age group which remains at 5%. In addition, the number of women in higher education especially in the science and technology fields. In respects to quality, not a single Western and Central African university features in the rankings of the world´s best 500 academic institutions. (https://www.globalpartnership.org/blog/challenges-and-prospects-africas-higher-education)

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