Uudella koulutuksella uudelle vuosituhannelle-Suomen 1990-luvun koulutuspolitiikka

Abstract

Väitöskirjassa tarkastellaan suomalaista 1990-luvun koulutuspolitiikkaa poliittisten dokumenttien analyysin ja 15 avainhenkilön haastattelujen kautta. Tutkimusmenetelmänä on aineiston laadullinen analyysi, jossa aineistosta esiin nousevat ulottuvuudet ja luokat nähdään ensisijaisina suhteessa tutkijan teoreettisiin esioletuksiin.

Tutkimuksessa yhteiskunnan taloudellisten, sosiaalisten, poliittisten ja teknologisten olosuhteiden nähdään asettavan koulutuspolitiikan toteuttamiselle ehtoja ja toteutetulla politiikalla nähdään olevan seurauksia yhteiskunnallisiin oloihin. Koulutuspoliittista päätöksentekoa tarkastellaan prosessina, jossa politiikan tekijöiden intressit, ideologiat ja heidän eri lähteistään vastaanottamansa ja käsittelemänsä informaatio muokkaavat heidän mielipiteitänsä ja toimintaansa yhden tai useamman instituution, muun sosiaalisen toimintaympäristön sekä kansainvälistymis- ja globalisaatiokehityksen muodostamassa viitekehyksessä.

Tutkimustulokset osoittavat 1990-luvun koulutuspolitiikan päälinjojen määräytyneen 1980-luvun loppupuolella tehtyjen koulutusjärjestelmän kehittämistä koskevien visioiden perusteella. Vuosikymmenen alun talouslamasta riippumatta laajan poliittisen konsensuksen tukemat visiot(kuten vuosikymmenen suurin rakenteellinen uudistus, ammattikorkeakoulu) saatiin pääosin toteutettua, joskin niukentuneita resursseja suunnattiin suhteellisesti eniten keskeisimmiksi kehityskohteiksi koettujen avainalueiden kehittämiseen (korkeakoulutus, tietoyhteiskunta). Koulutuspoliittisen päätösvallan hajauttaminen ja koulutusta koskevan säätelyjärjestelmän purkaminen johtivat vuosikymmenen lopulla toteutuneeseen koulutuksen lainsäädännön kokonaisuudistukseen. Koulutustarjonnan laajentaminen toteutettiin perusasteen jälkeisessä koulutuksessa nuorisoasteen koulutuskokeilujen, oppisopimuskoulutuksen ja aikuiskoulutuksen piirissä ja koulutustason nostaminen tapahtui perustamalla ammattikorkeakoulut yliopistoille rinnakkaisiksi ammatillisesti suuntautuneiksi korkeakouluiksi yhdistämällä toisiinsa ammatillisen opisto- ja korkea-asteen oppilaitoksia.

1990-luvulla koulutuksen rakenteiden ja sisältöjen kansainvälistymiskehitys kiihtyi entisestään ja sitä tuettiin tietoisella kansainvälistämispolitiikalla, johon kansainvälisistä organisaatioista vaikuttivat lähinnä OECD ja Euroopan unioni, joista jälimmäisen merkitys laajeni Suomen täysjäsenyyden myötä 1995. Vuosikymmenen koulutuspolitiikka oli pitkälti virkamiesten ja asiantuntijoiden koulutuspolitiikkaa, jota osoittaa mm. opetusministeriön yksittäisten virkamiesten ja työryhmien erittäin keskeinen rooli koulutusuudistusehdotusten valmistelussa ja ehdotusten toteutuminen pääsääntöisesti lähes esitetyssä muodossaan. Poliittisista puolueista vuosikymmenen koulutuspolitiikkaan vaikutti vahvimmin kokoomus opetusministeriensä ja opetushallinnon kärkipaikoilla toimineiden virkamiestensä kautta. Koulutuspoliittisen ajattelun arvoperusta kytkeytyi toteutetuista säästöistä ja leikkauksista ja osittaisesta koulutuksen markkinoistamisajattelun voimistumisesta riippumatta mahdollisuuksien tasa-arvon liberaaliin tulkintaan.

The purpose of this doctoral thesis is to study Finnish educational policy in the 1990s, and it is conducted by analysing political documents and by interviewing selected key persons from the field, i.e. decision-makers and those implementing the decisions. On the one hand, economic, political, social and technological conditions of the society are seen as essential preconditions for political decision-making and, on the other hand, implemented decisions are seen to shape those conditions in turn. Political decision making is seen as a process, where the interests and ideologies of the policy-makers, together with the manifold information they receive and deal with, are shaping their opinions and actions in the context of their institutional and other social environments and the internationalization and globalization processes. The interviewees belong to the front row actors of the Finnish educational policy and they represent the governance of education, labor market organizations and educational institutions. All of the 15 interviews that were made by using the "general interview approach" (consisting of general themes) were conducted during spring and autumn in 2000.

On the one hand, by using qualitative approach categories and dimensions derived inductively from the data itself were given the priority, although the basic themes of the interviews were partly formed according to the theoretical presuppositions of the researcher. However, on the other hand, each interview was also perceived as an unique case, produced by the interviewer and the interviewee themselves. Moreover, criss-cross-analysis was also used in order to enable general conclusions over the single cases.

The scientific purpose of this study is to try to understand and to describe the educational policy of the decade, by using hermeneutic interpretation, i.e. to answer the questions concerning what has been done in the field of educational policy, why, and what kind of consequences the policy has had to education, educational structures and the society. In the approach of this study sociological, pedagogical, social political and comparative perspectives are used in order to examine the political decision-making and action, educational system, social functions of education, concepts of knowledge and learning, the role of education in the Finnish welfare state and the relation between domestic educational policy and the developments of internationalization and globalization of education during the decade.

The findings of the research show that the main lines of the Finnish educational policy of the decade were already defined in the end of the 1980s based on the development visions for the educational system given by the Ministry of Education. Most of the visions, which enjoyed relatively wide political consensus, were carried out as reforms during the decade, although the economic recession of the early 1990s decreased the financial resources of every sector of the public administration. On the one hand, the structural reforms and the reforms of content were possible to make, since they demanded only minor additional expenditure, which was the case e.g with the biggest structural reform of the decade, polytechnics that were established after a period of experiment in 1995. On the other hand, the decreased financial resources were directed comparatively more towards the areas of education and the educational system that were seen to be of major importance during the decade, i.e higher education and information society. Further, the decentralization of educational administration from a highly centralized system of decision-making towards the model emphasizing the responsibility of the communities and educational institutions themselves meant a transition towards the evaluation-based educational policy, where the proper functioning of the educational system is now assured by a legal duty both for the educational institutions to conduct regular self-evaluations and for the governance of education to organize external evaluations carried out by domestic and international quarters. In addition to the decentralization process the deregularisation of education led to the overall reform of the educational legislation, where the formerly fragmented legislation at the different levels of education was replaced by relatively loose skeleton laws.

In the 1990s the extension of the supply of education was concentrated on the post-primary education and concerned the experimental reforms for cooperation between the general and vocational upper secondary institutions, education based on apprenticeship contracts and adult education. In addition, the system of the higher education was extended by establishing the polytechnics by raising the level of education given at the vocational colleges and higher level vocational institutions and by uniting the institutions stated above to each other. Further, internationalization of Finnish education was visible both in the reforms concerning the contents and structures of education and it was mainly affected by the evaluations and recommendations given by the OECD and the European Union and the meaning of the latter for the domestic educational policy arose due to the full membership of Finland that was received in 1995. The educational policy of the decade can also be argued to be policy of the experts and state officials, who were responsible for planning and creating the reforms, which were largely carried into effect in their proposed forms. Out of the political parties the Coalition Party was most able to effect the educational policy of the decade by dominating the post of the Minister of Education and by having its members in the top positions of the educational administration. However, the research findings do not show striking shifts in the actual balance of power or in the influential opportunities between the political interest groups. Finally, and regardless of the economical recession that led to the mass unemployment, decreased financial resources and savings and cuts on educational expenditure, the value-bases of the educational policy of the Finnish welfare state rested on the liberal interpretation of the equality of opportunity and improving equality of education was emphasized to be a duty of the government by law.