The OECD wishes to thank the staff members of the Finnish Education Evaluation Centre (FINEEC) and members of the FINEEC Board for their indispensable contributions to this evaluation. Their engagement in interviews, focus groups and bilateral meetings has been vital to the project’s success.
Special thanks to FINEEC Director Harri Peltoniemi; Hannele Seppälä, Vice Director of FINEEC; and Senior Manager Mari Räkköläinen for their openness and co-operation. Their comprehensive responses to the self-assessment questionnaire, prompt answers to queries and substantial support in mission organisation have been critical to the success of this evaluation.
We are also very grateful to the Ministry of Education and Culture of Finland staff, especially Aleksi Kalenius, Ministerial Advisor at the Ministry of Education and Culture, for their guidance, unwavering support and crucial role in mission organisation.
We sincerely appreciate various stakeholders whose insights have greatly enriched our understanding. This includes representatives from the Finnish National Agency for Education, the Association of Finnish Municipalities, municipalities, universities, and vocational education and training (VET) institutions. Their contributions have been invaluable.
We extend our thanks to the international experts who assisted with this project, including Helen Arus (Estonia), Head of General Education of the Estonian Quality Agency for Education (HAKA); Enis Dogan, Chief Psychometrician of the US National Centre for Education Statistics (NCES); and Kim Eun Young, Director of Office of International Cooperation of the Korean Educational Development Institute (KEDI). We would also like to thank OECD experts Diana Toledo Figueroa, Project Leader of the OECD Education Policy Outlook, and Simon Roy, Senior Policy Analyst, Higher Education Policy and Benchmarking, and others, who participated in our workshops. Their shared experiences, ideas and reflections on Finland’s challenges and potential solutions have been instrumental.
Additionally, we are grateful for the participation of Jukka Mattila, senior ministerial adviser of the Ministry of Finance; Niku Määttänen, chairperson of The Finnish Economic Policy Council; Sirkku Kupiainen, visiting researcher of the Centre for Educational Assessment CEA at the University of Helsinki; and Roope Uusitalo, professor at the University of Helsinki, who joined the launch event to discuss the results of the project. Their participation provided a rich opportunity to have a rich conversation on how the current education evaluation system can contribute more strongly to the improvement of public policies.
Ricardo Espinoza and Patricio Ruedi were the OECD project leaders responsible for co-ordinating this evaluation and were the principal authors of this report.
Special mention must be made of our OECD colleagues, particularly Andrew Bell, Head of OECD Skills Strategies, and Marieke Vandeweyer, Team Leader for Vocational Educational and Training, who provided analytical guidance and supervised the project. El Iza Mohamedou, Head of the OECD Centre for Skills, oversaw the project, while Stefano Scarpetta, OECD Director for Employment, Labour and Social Affairs, and Mark Pearson, OECD Deputy Director for Employment, Labour and Social Affairs, provided strategic oversight. Finally, we extend our gratitude to Bastiaan de Laat and Mauricio Torres Velasquez from the OECD’s Evaluation and Internal Audit Unit and to Carlos Hinojosa of the Public Governance Directorate for their invaluable methodological guidance during the early stages of this project.
Mikaela Malka, an intern for the OECD Centre for Skills, supported the co-ordination of missions and contributed to literature research and information analysis. Darragh Mckee Mathews, also an intern at the OECD Centre for Skills, assisted in the editing and publication process of the report.
Finally, we acknowledge Véronique Quénehen, Duniya Dedeyn and Tara Byrne for their excellent work in mission organisation and Jennifer Cannon for her communication support.