3 / 2000
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Anu enjoyed her stay in EnglandFinnish students are enthusiastic participants in student exchange programmes
Anu Hirsimäki is a student at the Turku University Department of Teacher Education. She spent three months as an exchange student in Bretton Hall College of the University of Leeds, Wakefield, England. 
Anu Hirsimäki"Bretton Hall College specialises in art, drama, music and the performing arts. During my stay, I was a student at the Faculty of Fine Arts. I am specialising in the visual arts at the Turku University Department of Teacher Education, so this was the ideal place for me. Bretton Hall trains teachers for early education."
During the time Anu spent as an exchange student, she had the opportunity to learn more about drama education. She was also interested in fine arts education, and thus chose a course on photography.
"In drama education, I participated in a course on interpreting texts, and I was also given a small role in a play. Improvising in English was terribly difficult, especially since everyone had to use a broad Yorkshire dialect!"
Student activities were abundant, so Anu was not lonely in Wakefield. She praises the local exchange students’ coordinator. "I was made to feel very welcome at Bretton Hall."
Getting ready for lunch. Anu worked as an assistant teacher in a class that included, for example, (from the left) Nicholas, Chelsie, James, Jordan, Garroth and Katherine. Especially Jordan (in the middle) was very impressed by the Finnish Santa Claus that Anu told them about. The magic of Santa Claus
As a teacher trainee, Anu was able to assist in children’s early education. The children in the class were very young, from five to six years of age. To them, Anu was Miss "Anju", whose exotic home country the children had searched for on the map at home.
"Once I told the children about Finland, and my tale about Santa Claus silenced them completely."
"What struck me most was that, in Finland, teaching is much more pupil-centred and the teacher is more a tutor. In Finland, the curriculum can be implemented much more freely. In England, the teaching situation felt stricter and more formal," says Anu, remembering the straight lines of children in sports class.
"The teacher was seen as a real authority but, on the other hand, some of that authority might be useful in Finland as well," says Anu with a laugh.
"There is one thing in particular that I want to use when I am a teacher: notebooks, in which the children ‘wrote’ shopping lists and all kinds of little stories. Even though they could not yet write, they learned to use their hands and their pencils. When they ‘read’ from those notebooks and told the stories ‘written’ in them, they also developed their imagination."
Finnish students are enthusiastic participants in student exchange programmes Finland is still one of the most active countries in the EU as far as student exchange is concerned. The Socrates/Erasmus statistics from the academic year 1998–1999 reveal that the number of students participating in student exchange programmes is still growing: 3441 Finnish students were studying at European universities under the Erasmus programme. The number has grown by 400 from the previous year.
The number of foreign exchange students in Finland grew even more, as 2420 Erasmus students from other European countries were studying at Finnish universities, which means an increase of 562 from the previous year. Finland as a target country was especially popular for students from Mediterranean countries such as Spain, Italy, and France.
Student exchange between the United Kingdom and Finland is unbalanced, as 720 more students go to the UK than come to Finland. In general, getting British students to go abroad seems to be difficult. Perhaps Mother’s cooking tastes too good? On the other hand, Finland sends fewer exchange students to Italy, Belgium and Hungary than she receives from these countries.
Source: Centre for International Mobility CIMO, http://www.cimo.fi
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