Evaluation of Government’s key projects for higher education 2017–2022

Between 2022 and 2023, the Finnish Education Evaluation Centre (FINEEC) will implement a national evaluation funded by the Ministry of Education and Culture with the aim of assessing the impacts and effectiveness of the higher education development projects (Key project 3) and teacher education development projects (Key project 1) funded by the Ministry. The evaluation is aimed at forming an overall picture of the situation by producing information on the implementation of Key projects 1 and 3, and the impacts and effectiveness of their results and model of development by Key projects. In addition, the aim is to produce information on the functionality and sustainability of the development model selected and issue recommendations for the method of developing higher education and teacher education in the future. The evaluation of Government’s key projects for higher education 2017-2022 provides information for the focus area of Karvi’s evaluation plan on supporting continuous development.

The higher education development projects (Key project 3) were launched in 2017 and 2018 for two years. The main themes in the projects were openness and flexibility of studies, cooperation in the provision of education, accelerated transition of students to working life, higher education pedagogy and digital solutions. The projects have also improved cooperation with working life and developed open RDI activities. During the term 2017–2019, 17 projects were funded, and 19 projects were granted funding for the term 2018–2020.

A central area of development in the teacher education development projects (Key project 1) has been to strengthen the continuum formed by the core education, induction training and in-service training of teachers. For example, the projects have strengthened the networks in teacher education and developed new operating models for the development of teachers’ competence, the content of in-service training and student admission. In addition, the development of leadership in education has been supported. The duration of the teacher education development projects is mainly two or three years, and they are divided between two terms, 2017–2020 and 2020–2021. Some of the projects will continue into 2022. The total number of teacher education development projects is 57 (45 projects and 12 partial projects). A new Teacher Education Forum was appointed for the period 2019—2022 to support the operation of the teacher education networks and projects and to ensure that impacts will be achieved.

The members of the planning and evaluation team are:

Helka-Liisa Hentilä, Professor, University of Oulu (chair)
Harri Jalonen, Professor, University of Vaasa
Emmi Lainpelto, student, Tampere University of Applied Sciences
Pekka Risku, Director, Jyväskylä University of Applied Sciences
Kirsi Viskari, Vice President, Tampere University of Applied Sciences
Kyösti Värri, Senior Advisor, Association of Finnish Local and Regional Authorities.

The Higher Education Evaluation Committee has approved the project plan for the Evaluation of Government’s key projects for higher education 2017-2022 on 15 June 2022.

The target group of the evaluation comprises all Finnish education institutions that have been involved in higher education development projects (Key project 3) and teacher education development projects (Key project 1).

The evaluation will be carried out in three phases according to the table below. Several methods are used to collect the evaluation data. Also, the data are collected in three stages, in which the following phase complements the evaluation data obtained in previous ones. The data collection is partly carried out together with the Evaluation of the state and reform of higher education pedagogy.

Phase	Actions
Phase I Forming an overview of higher education and teacher education development projects and the operating model	Meta-analysis of the project reports Background survey for higher education institutions Hearings Defining the evaluation framework to be used in the evaluation
Phase II Evaluation of effectiveness	A survey for teaching staff at higher education institutions (carried out as part of The evaluation of the state and reform of higher education pedagogy) A survey for higher education institutions 24.10.-18.11.2022 Complementing the data collected by the surveys with focus group interviews Identification of concrete results of projects Gaining an overview of the impact and effectiveness of key projects
Phase III Formulating development recommendations	Development seminar Recommendations for development and proposals for future development models