EduFutura Jyväskylä is a learning, research, and development community based on collaboration of three leading education providers which aims to search for learning solutions of the future and to create diverse opportunities for students to pursue flexible and individual study paths.
The members of EduFutura are
- Jyväskylä Educational Consortium Gradia, which provides general upper secondary education as well as vocational education and training (VET)
- JAMK University of Applied Sciences
- University of Jyväskylä
EduFutura Jyväskylä is a notable example of a broader strategic and structural change in the Finnish Higher Education organisational policy. For years the Ministry of Education has encouraged both academic universities and universities of applied sciences to seek new kinds of networking and co-operation structures, alliances and even mergers. According to the report, there are currently 11 such processes going on in Finland (Halttunen 2016), one of which is the EduFutura.
EduFutura Jyväskylä as a centre of excellence forms a unique partnership in learning, research, development, experimentation and application related to the leading-edge fields in the area. We collaboratively develop learning solutions of the future and create diverse opportunities for students to pursue flexible study paths. The uniqueness of EduFutura Jyväskylä lies in bringing three educational organisations from different levels of the education system together on an equal footing and pooling of expertise in areas of shared strategic strengths and interests.
The EduFutura Jyväskylä co-operation focuses on
- Renewal of Learning
- Health, Rehabilitation, Wellbeing and Physical Exercise
- Promotion of Entrepreneurship
- The Finnish Music Campus
- Education Export
- Applied Cyber Security and ICT
- Bioeconomy
Each of these areas of excellence has a dedicated task force.
Although co-operation activities between three organizations has been carried out for decades, the EduFutura model is quite new, only four years old and we are constantly seeking to get to know similar entities and collaborative consortiums and, therefore, benchmark experiences, results and processes from other parts of Europe and beyond.
EduFutura is based in Jyväskylä, a city in Central Finland with a population of 142 000, a third of which are students. The city, also often nicknamed “the Athens of Finland” is called the heart of Finnish Education not without a reason. Here in the mid-1800s Finish education was born with the first ever Finnish language grammar school, a teacher training college for primary school teachers and a school for girls. Ever since, the city has been at the forefront of developing lifelong learning.
