Työhön Suomeen? Tutkimus työperusteiseen maahanmuuttoon liittyvistä koulutusprosesseista

Abstract

Ulkomaalaista työvoimaa - erityisesti terveydenhoitoalan henkilöstöä - houkutellaan Suomeen töihin. Erilaiset EU-rahoitteiset projektit rekrytoivat työntekijöitä, joille oppilaitokset ja yksityiset firmat järjestävät suomen kielen koulutuksia lähtömaassa ennen Suomeen muuttoa. Onko työperusteinen maahanmuutto vastaus työvoimapulaan? Onnistuvatko koulutusprosessit? Ovatko muuttajat ja työnantajat tyytyväisiä?

Tutkimuksessa tarkastellaan suomen kielen oppimista ja opettamista lähtömaassa, ulkomaalaisten työntekijöiden vastaanottamista suomalaisissa työyhteisöissä sekä näiden prosessien kehittämistä. Tutkimuksen empiirinen aineisto on kerätty Bulgariassa, Virossa ja Suomessa.

Työperusteinen maahanmuutto nostaa esiin tunteita ja ristiriitoja, joiden huomioiminen tai huomiotta jättäminen vaikuttaa kokonaisuuden onnistumiseen. Lähtömaakoulutus ei ole ainoastaan kielen ja kulttuurin opettamista, vaan se sisältää kokonaisen tapahtumien ja toiminnan ketjun maasta toiseen siirtymiseksi. Ihminen tunteineen, toiveineen ja odotuksineen unohtuu helposti toiminnan pyörteissä.

Työperusteista maahanmuuttoa ei tulisi tarkastella ainoastaan taloudellisen hyödyn näkökulmasta, vaan inhimillinen ihminen - sekä muuttaja että vastaanottaja - huomioiden. Työantajien toiminnalla on ratkaiseva merkitys muuttajien ammatillisen kielitaidon kehittymisessä ja siinä, että tänne muuttaneet saadaan myös pysymään täällä.

The aim of this study is to examine the processes of pre-departure training and labor migration from the point of view of immigrants, employers and education centers/teachers. This study also considers ESF funded projects as methods to finance and promote labor migration. This is a phenomenological-ethnographic case study, where I as a researcher am firmly present through my work and position. My main goal is not to give quantitative information about labor migration, work places or the number of trainees, but to concentrate on the experiences of the participants in the different phases of the process. The cases I have chosen for this study (Finnish language training programs in Estonia, Bulgaria and Finland) provide information about labor migration and the training processes related to it – a recent phenomenon, about which not much research has yet been carried out. The training programs mentioned were carried out by one vocational adult education center in western Finland and its unit specializing in immigrant training and development projects.

The purpose was to find out what really happens during the processes of labor migration from individuals’ perspectives: Do expectations and reality meet? Do the employers get the skilled work force they desire? Is it possible for training centers to develop training processes in such a way that all parties involved in them are satisfied? Is the labor shortage so real that it is easy for those who move to Finland for work to actually get work? How about those immigrants who already live in Finland: are they taken into account, and are their possibilities to gain employment also promoted? I summarize these questions as follows:

1. What kind of challenges do immigrants, training centers/teachers and employers face in labor migration? 2. How can these challenges be answered? Are the ESF funded projects a solution or a burden? 3. How is it possible to develop the processes of pre-departure training?

I have interviewed students, teachers, employers and project workers. I also used a blog and a diary written by teachers and my own observations during the study. I have taken part in all the phases as a researcher looking at the situations from inside, which gives my study an ethnographic perspective. I analyze the results of the study by using Goffman’s frame analysis. Different frames make the multidimensionality and meaning structures of the activities as well as actions of human beings in different roles understandable through various kinds of frames. Important is the primary frame and whether the participants understand and perceive the primary frames in a similar way.

Labor migration challenges immigrants, teachers as well as employers. As a result of my study I point out that there are a lot of feelings and contradictions involved in these processes. Pre-departure training does not only mean teaching and learning a language and cultural aspects, but consists of a whole chain of events and actions involved in moving from one country to another. Thus it is a question of activities among people in international surroundings, creating multicultural and intercultural understanding, and at the same time a learning process for each individual.

An individual person with his or her feelings, needs and expectations is easily forgotten in project managing. I present how challenging situations can be answered and how co-operation between various participants should be developed so that labor migration could become a part of the solution to the labor shortage. In this report I describe one model of realizing and developing pre-departure training. The aim of the development should be effective learning and quality training, not competing on price and minimizing costs. The recruiting process should focus more on taking the expectations and needs of individual people into consideration, and promises of getting work should be based on real available positions. Projects and employers do not recruit only one person; their choices have an impact on the lives of whole families. The role of employers is significant when planning the content of training. Employers and Finnish colleagues should give the workers coming from abroad time to learn the language. Integration services should be developed. ntercultural training should be given in workplaces and intercultural understanding should be promoted.

Based on my study I can state that my understanding concerning the implementation of pre-departure training and its multi-faceted and many-framed problems has been deepened. The process of pre-departure training can, if desired, be developed to become more efficient, more human and more productive, as well as a model where all parties are taken better into consideration.