Podcast 
The significance of continuous learning will increase in the future, but building your competence may be challenging in different life situations. In this episode, Laura Paaso from Oulu University of Applied Sciences and Milma Arola from Secle Service Centre for Continuous Learning and Employment talk about supporting continuous learning, encouraging learning as a lifestyle, and building competence identities. The host of the podcast is Programme Director Hanna Nordlund.
The language of the podcast is Finnish.
Listen to the episode here:
Transcription of the episode
[Music]
Hanna Norlund
Welcome to the podcast of the Digivisio 2030 programme, where we talk about what kind of future or learning we are building in Finland right now. I am Hanna Norlund, and there are different specialist quests sharing the microphone with me. This is where Oppimisen Seuraava Luku [Next Chapter of Learning] starts.
[Music]
Hanna Norlund
Hey, and welcome to the next episode of Oppimisen Seuraava Luku podcast. Today we will discuss different kind of learners and how universities can support different learners and on the other hand how learning could happen in all life situations. Today my guests are Laura Paaso, the rector of Oulu University of Applied Sciences and Milma Arola, the project manager of the Service Centre for Continuous Learning and Employment, SECLE. Welcome.
Laura Paaso
Thank you.
Milma Arola
Thanks.
Hanna Norlund
It’s nice to have you as a guest, Laura. You are working as the rector of Oulu University of Applied Sciences and you are researching the development of competence identity. What does competence identity mean, and how did you end up researching this topic?
Laura Paaso
Competence identity means the individual’s perception of themselves as a skilled worker, so in practice what I can do, where all that competence has come from and how I can apply my competences in different contexts. Competence identity is especially significant when there are different changes or even crises happening in working life. The profession or work task that is familiar and safe might change radically or fast, and then we need a new kind of perception of competence. That is the core of competence identity. I ended up researching this topic because I want to participate in building the kind of working life where everybody could find their own thing and their own significant work career and path. That is what I want to promote through research.
Hanna Norlund
Thank you. Our other specialist guest is Milma. A warm welcome to you as well.
Milma Arola
Thank you.
Hanna Norlund
You work with continuous learning and employment. What kind of expectations do people in working life have overall concerning complementing their own competence today?
Milma Arola
Yes. We have a quite fresh survey about this topic, and mostly people of working age enjoy learning new things and are happy to have training during their career. Then it’s also good to remember that people learn in other ways than training. People learn at their jobs a lot. People also have quite different expectations and ways of learning. For some, studying things independently is more suitable. Some people want specific courses and courses and training related to their own work task and some learn by doing. There are as many expectations as there are people.
Hanna Norlund
Then if we go to today’s topic, we at Digivisio have since the beginning talked about learners and not students, and we have wanted to cherish the thought that everybody is a learner, whether they are a person who is completing their higher education degree or someone in working life that wants to broaden their competences. Laura and Milma, for you continuous learning and different learners are a matter of heart. If I start with asking quite a big question, which is how can we support a lifestyle of learning and its creation? Milma, how would you analyse this?
Milma Arola
Yes. That is a very big question, and the basis of a lifestyle of learning is created when a person is young and in their childhood and school years. Unfortunately, if there are bad experiences, that could also have far-reaching consequences all the way to working age. But the basis for an attitude of learning and joy of learning can also be created during the work career. For me, it’s also very important what happens at workplaces. There needs to be a supportive atmosphere where you can innovate, make mistakes, give and receive feedback, learn by doing, work in a pair, work in a team. These types of things will encourage us to learn new things. Of course courses, trainings and personnel trainings all encourage us to learn new things. We have as many different ways of learning as we do different people. Then on the side of training and courses, I think it’s very important that we have different types of education on offer for different people and different lifestyles. It could be training that you can connect to your current work task or work and that you can genuinely participate along with work. Then the ways of learning are diverse in a way that suits everyone. I think these kind of things support that. Then there are of course big societal questions, like how subsistence works during education. If you are a full-time student, what do you live on. Of course you can learn a lot of new things on courses or in working life without being a full-time student. I loved your concept of a learner here. We all are learners throughout life.
Hanna Norlund
Laura, did what Milma said resonate with you? She described quite well that the competence identity might start developing from elementary school, but how do you think a lifestyle of learning is connected to competence identity?
Laura Paaso
Yes. I would say that a lifestyle of learning starts already in early childhood. I think that from the perspective of competence identity, a future orientation and increasing future awareness would be central. We should have more situations where we think about what the future will bring and what kind of possibilities it opens up for us. On the other hand, I see that awareness or understanding that society and working life are changing and what kind of effects it has on the working life or the way of working or the work communities, that in itself creates an urge to learn new things and to develop your own competences continuously. I believe that increasing future awareness could be one key to a lifestyle of learning. On the other hand, I think that in a lifestyle of learning, the central thing is the internal motivation or that we can somehow awaken that internal urge to learn more and develop the readiness to learn how to learn. Another central thing there is that we are different. We are all individuals, and we learn in individual ways. For some people, continuous learning is significantly more natural than for others. It’s also quite good to recognise that for some people a lifestyle or an orientation of learning is actually a quiet natural starting point and for others it’s a bit harder.
Hanna Norlund
Yes. This is an interesting perspective. We want to make sure that everybody has a possibility to learn individually in a way that is suitable for their own need and situation regardless of their background or education. Then on the other hand, we know that things happen in life. Our life situations vary. Milma, you at SECLE just published results from what working aged people think about continuous learning, and it is visible that many people would like to learn and study more, but then the reason why that doesn’t happen is the challenges of balancing learning and education and other life. Milma, how do you think we should take into account different situations that learners have in an even better way and how could ensure that learning could intertwine to our individual life situations in an even better way?
Milma Arola
Yes. That is a very good question. Often the reason not to participate is time, money and then how the participation to education can be intertwined into their life situation. It could be that work is busy or family life is busy, and it can feel quite challenging to fit a longer term education there. But I see that one solution is that you don’t always need a degree of several years. Education is so much more. For example, we at SECLE fund short-term training for the needs of working life, and then it’s not necessarily a significant investment of time from the individual. Of course learning is always a process and takes time. But I think about it from the perspective of universities and the organisers of education, I think that you should be able to realistically complete education, whether or not you are active in working life or otherwise in life. The learning tasks need to be connected to the actual work and we should organise possibilities to study at different times and have the help of online studies and multiple alternatives. Luckily, today we have a lot of things on offer. There need to be flexible possibilities, but learning always requires some time and investment, at least participating in education.
Hanna Norlund
Yes. You mentioned what universities do and could do, but Laura, would you like to continue about how especially universities currently support different kinds of learners and what should maybe be done better?
Laura Paaso
Like Milma said, there is already a lot on offer. We have lots of different continuing professional education and specialisation studies and master’s degree programmes and diverse offers in open universities and that is mainly or at least partly constructed in such a way that that education can also be done along with work. So essentially that is possible. But maybe in this continuous learning and intertwining studying together, I would call for a need-oriented approach. It’s connected to what Milma just said, but on the other hand, I see that it is important for us universities to be up to date about what is the need of business and the surrounding society for education, and clarifying that and a more close cooperation would be the crucial thing in my opinion. Then again what are the needs for developing an individual’s competence and thinking about that more precisely and that we could offer those different flexible, diverse education services. Like Milma just said, completing a whole degree isn’t necessarily for everyone, but we need different alternatives. On the other hand, if we think about different changes in working life, it could be that we, for example, need specific competences for a specific task. I see that in the future, the need for the kind of competence will be emphasized more that is not necessarily directly your own field or substance, but for example from the neighbouring field or a completely different field and that we would enable flexible study paths where you could complement your competences with another field’s competence. I think that this kind of competence and competence combinations that cross fields are needed even more in the future.
Hanna Norlund
Yes. You brought up that the perspective of the individual and then the working life and employee have to meet. Lately, we have talked quite a lot about the decline in Finnish learning outcomes and educational level. In the older age groups, we are above the OECD average, but the educational level of 25–34-year old Finnish people is under the OECD average. According to the education report of the Ministry of Education and Culture, people born in 1978 are our most educated age group. In the previous episode of our podcast, we talked about the national target that at least 50 percent of young adults would complete a higher education degree and 60 percent of adults would annually participate in continuous learning. On the other hand, for many people it might be quite a long time since they were in school, so how do we encourage those kind of people to participate continuous learning? What do you think about this, Milma?
Milma Arola
Yes. It is true that if it has been a long time since you studied, the threshold to start studying could be quite big. Then it also might be that your image and perception of what participating in education is nowadays might be outdated. Laura described well that nowadays we have quite versatile alternatives, but people don’t necessarily know about them. For example, our own survey tells us that particularly those people who would especially benefit from the information of what education alternatives exist and would like to develop their competence and what they should do, so for example people who have a basic level of education or people with lower education, have the least amount of information about the education alternatives. That is quite worrisome when we know that in Finland, as in other places, education accumulates to the highly educated and then some people are left out. But then what is the antidote of getting people to return to school and to education. The first step would of course be to raise awareness of all the alternatives, of how you can study and sending the message that you don’t always need to commit to something for five years, but you can get a degree in smaller pieces or the competence in a shorter time. Then it’s of course important that you have guidance, support and counselling during your studies and for your learning capacities and learning path. I think these are the means to do it.
Hanna Norlund
Milma just said that it could be that people have outdated perceptions of what studying is and then on the other hand, at universities degree programme students are the more well-known group. How could universities better handle continuous learners as a target group, and Laura, what do you think, what does that mean from the perspective of customer experience? We also might think that continuous learners look for a specific learning experience and learning service and individual paths that you have talked about. How should universities handle this kind of a target group?
Laura Paaso
Excellent question. I don’t think there is one right answer. I would break it down from the perspective that first of all, the information about these possibilities is quite scattered and it might be hard to get. It might be quite hard to become interested in education when you don’t have enough information about it or you don’t know how to get that information. There are many different services available, so that they would be complied in one place might be the first step towards it being easier to even think about studying something. The other point that Milma also touched upon earlier is the need for guidance. So currently from my point of view, our degree programme students, and I’m specifically talking about bachelor’s and master’s degree programme students, are the ones who get guidance and especially career counselling and guidance related to thinking about your own educational path from the guidance counsellor, but for our customers of continuous learning, their guidance or its availability is quite scarce and scattered. I was thinking that it would be wonderful if we had guidance counsellors for adults who could help us with career planning and competence development and with that path, because adults don’t have this kind of support in the same way than degree programme students do. So in practice some kind of guidance that would help you think about your own path. Maybe a third point is the recognition and acknowledgement of competence. The adults who come here to study from the working life have enormous competence. They could have different trainings in the background and especially work experience and all kinds of other competence that hasn’t been rewarded a degree certificate or a paper. Nobody has acknowledged that competence, but that doesn’t mean that it isn’t there. I think that we here at universities are still in the early phases of recognising and acknowledging competence. We are good with recognising existing degrees and we can (unclear) some specific courses for example, but that’s it. We need to recognise comprehensive competence and how we can promote the education paths through that.
Milma Arola
We easily equate competence with a profession or a degree. I know that Laura has written about this. People don’t necessarily even think about all the competence that they have. For people of working age, most of the learning happens at the job, by doing the job, by solving some difficult customer cases or developing new things, by taking on challenges, by doing team work, by working in a pair. But when it’s not goal-directed learning and it’s not said out loud that we are now getting acquainted with something or training and when you don’t get a diploma or a certificate, people don’t recognise it. I think people have so much competence that they have gotten from working life and hobbies and training that might even stay hidden from people themselves. Then I could add one more thing to that counselling matter. Laura, you brought up that people using continuous learning services are lacking guidance. But when we think about people who are currently not in any educational institute, so most of our working age population, it would also be very important that we have some kind of guidance and help there about what your next directions are and how you could develop your competence so that something. So that you could do better in working life or you get into the profession of your dreams or you can respond to the changing need for competence, whatever that stimulus there is. Luckily according to our research, it is usually the internal motivation that Laura was also talking about earlier. People usually develop their competences because of their own interest and excitement and because they want to develop in what they are studying. It’s not so much an external necessity. Of course sometimes it’s that as well.
Hanna Norlund
Indeed. Yes. There were many good and interesting things that I would like to speak more about, but what came to my mind about what you were talking about was that we don’t necessarily even ourselves recognise our own competence identity. Maybe we also need help or conscious thinking concerning ourselves. Like Milma said, we don’t even necessarily think about everything we know how to do.
Milma Arola
Yes, indeed. People have a tendency to pay more attention to the competence that we don’t have than the one we do. We often think about our own competence when there is an assessment or a competition situation going on. We are applying for a job or a school or a grant or are giving a pitch somewhere. Then it’s easy for us to reflect that I don’t have this or this or this. I think that is a big issue that we can do something about to make people recognise the existing competence that they have, and everyone has loads of it. According to our survey, it is also hard for people to talk about their own competence, and there are cultural factors and factors having to do with verbalising things and overall the kind of thinking that is this competence really competence if I’m not the best in the world in this or if I don’t have a PHD. I can’t necessarily say I have the competence then.
Hanna Norlund
Right. Maybe it’s also partly about Finnish modesty. But then I also want to talk about what Laura mentioned about not even knowing what kind of education is on offer and on the other hand, if you have an outdated perception of what studying at a higher education institution nowadays is, we have also noticed this in Digivisio. The biggest challenge of continuous learners in their own opinion is that the offering of higher education institutions is very scattered and it is very hard to compare them. It’s very hard to comprehend from the descriptions what you will actually learn and know after participating in that education. That is why the first thing we have decided to focus on in Digivisio is to compile the offering of continuous learning of higher education institutes to one place where it’s easily accessible and comparable and selectable. And also that the offering would be described in such a way that it’s relevant from the perspective of learners and what is their reason for selecting it. The first steps of Digivision are getting a thumbs up from Milma here…
Milma Arola
Yes. I am holding up my thumb.
Hanna Norlund
…in the studio. The raising of the competence level is such a central thing, that next I could ask how we could inspire and encourage people without previous higher education background to look at the offering of higher education institutions or for them to start the path of higher education later in their working lives?
Laura Paaso
I guess this question was directed at me.
Hanna Norlund
Either one can answer. [laughter] Whoever has the answer ready.
Laura Paaso
If you have a good idea for this, go ahead.
Milma Arola
The first thing that comes to my mind is to approach it in smaller pieces, like I mentioned before, that you don’t have to have to do everything at once. If you have a possibility to build a degree or a part of it through small paths and small study modules, that is one way. Then of course sharing information is very important in my opinion. If we really got the offering to be visible to people that this is all we have and this is what you can learn. I would also highlight here the fact that we are such different learners, and I think that’s one reason why our education accumulates to the highly educated so that a specific group is very keen and excited about learning and some aren’t. Then we also have to think about if people feel like the education offering is attractive. There are ways of learning by doing and things that are not school-like. What came up in our survey was that people wish for learning that is not school-like. So new ways of developing your own competence. I think that it would be good if our education offering had this also on higher levels, and we actually do at this point, but we could have more.
Laura Paaso
I could continue what you said about not being school-like, and look at it from a perspective of competence identity. I strongly believe that each of our unique competence identity is not only individual but also communal or social and interactive process. I see that continuous learning can on one hand be communal competence and societal renewal together with others, such as with your own work community or team. Maybe that could be the core of not being school-like. If we could build such entities of competence development where the work community would build a joint process of competence development in cooperation with universities and somehow that universities would not only operate as the executor of education but also as the facilitator of the development process and a cooperation partner. We could somehow build the entity of competence development together with the work community or the organization more broadly than just single specific trainings. If we started building this type of entities, that could be a light path towards higher education studies. I believe very strongly that the community has the power. None of us develop our competence alone in a bubble, but you always need people around you and you need to learn and reflect together and also peer support.
Hanna Norlund
Right, and maybe we also need other people to say that hey, Laura, you are good. You are very good at this. Milma, you handle that very well. Are we sometimes also too critical with our own competence identity?
Laura Paaso
Yes. We are critical, and we are blind. [laughs]
Milma Arola
That is true. It’s good that you brought up that often we need other people as a mirror for our own competence. It can be direct where you compliment a person or give them feedback. You did that so well. It’s so nice that you know so much about this. We notice our own competence when someone asks us for our help or we notice that we are always in a role where colleagues come talk to us and tell us things. Maybe I am a good listener. Our own competences come out when we are in interaction with others. Do people ask me to join working groups and things like these. Or when we go to an environment that is not familiar to us, we often take our competence for granted, thinking that everyone knows these things. But when we go to a completely different environment where there are people from different backgrounds, we might also realise the value of our own competence. That hey, I have a lot of silent knowledge that other people don’t have. Those were very good points, Laura, about communality and that’s a wonderful idea. That’s how it should be because learning is a collective and interactive process. It’s not just the individual’s path like we easily and traditionally may think. We should have that kind of cooperation in universities, and write this down for Digivisio. [laughs]
Hanna Norlund
What I’m hearing you say is that we not only need new kinds of forms of offering but maybe also new kind of cooperation, for example between universities and work communities. We have traditionally thought that continuous learners are people who have been in working life for a longer time that are in transitional phases in their life, but especially in Digivisio, we have lately talked that the lifestyle of continuous learning and also the development of competence identity require that already when we are dealing with the first learning experiences and for example study a degree programme at a university, we should already start thinking about ourselves as continuous learners. We have to get people from a very young age to the path of continuous learning. What do you think are the three most important things that we should take care of so that we could make our children and youth continuous learners from the start?
Laura Paaso
You asked for three.
Hanna Norlund
Yes. Three. You can say more if you can come up with them.
Laura Paaso
I already brought up future orientation earlier. I have worked both in high school and in higher education, and we don’t really consciously practice that with students. We don’t really think about what the future will bring and what kind of possibilities it will bring and on the other hand about the need for competence development. Strengthening future orientation could be one clear thing.
Milma Arola
Yes. If that was the first one, I can give the second one. We can do it like this.
Laura Paaso
Here you can see the cooperation. [laughs]
Milma Arola
Indeed. We are learning together like this. What was my second one again. I see that regardless of age, whether it’s in early childhood or in school or vocational side, it would be important to strengthen people’s trust in their own capabilities as a learner. I also see a lot of unnecessary lack of faith in my own work. If we get people to believe that hey, I can do this and I believe and trust that I am a learner. We are all learners, continuous learners whether we like it or not. I think that is something that should be constructed for people consciously throughout their school years. Do you have a third one?
Laura Paaso
I do, and it is related to your second one. It is a comprehensive recognition of potential and becoming aware of it. You said a bit earlier that we are very good at recognising the lacking or needs in our competence, but we are quite blind to what we are good at and what we are strong in. What I am very satisfied with is that currently in early childhood education and basic education we have a very strong competence-oriented education. There is a generation coming who are already very conscious of their own competences. But maybe the adults and young people who are currently thinking about their own career path and different alternatives are not necessarily very conscious about their strengths as a whole and their competences. They can be quite blind to it, and they might have experiences that they don’t really know anything or that they are not good at anything. We need some kind of conscious recognition and vocalisation of competence and strengths. Maybe the vocalisation is also a central thing. It doesn’t happen on its own, but we need guidance and support. There might not be words for it.
Milma Arola
I could continue from there. I also came up with a fourth point. But successful work places and work communities lead strengths. I see that at some work places they do recognise that. They don’t think that Laura needs to know everything, but that we have a three-person team here. Together we can do much more than any of us on our own. When we see where people’s strengths lie and we lead them and don’t focus on the gaps in competence. Traditionally work places do competence surveys where they look at what you cannot do and how on earth can we close these gaps. That is somehow a completely different way of thinking than seeing everything that this group can do. Let’s use these strengths. But then the fourth point that came to my mind. I don’t even remember the question anymore, but I have an answer ready. [laughs] Digivisio made me think that when we do cooperation between higher education institutes, I see it is very important that the learner could see the whole offering of services. The starting point wouldn’t be that we want you back here since you studied here once before, but the offering of educational services would be widely in use. In my opinion, this requires higher education institutions to cooperate and to think that the educational offering of all higher education institutes is on one plate, and you can choose the one that is suitable for you and your life situation.
Hanna Norlund
Hey, thank you. This has been a great discussion. We could have kept this going for much longer. You had very broad perspectives that will surely evoke a lot of thoughts for Digivisio but hopefully also for the listeners more broadly. What specifically stuck to my mind was that we should all think about and recognise our own competence identity and also use other people to recognise and strengthen our competence identity. Another thing was future orientation, and how we balance between the needs of working life and the needs of an individual, since you strongly brought up internal motivation. We talked quite a lot about trust in your own competences and strength-based thinking, but on the other hand, we also have to know what is offered and it has to be easily accessible and we have to be able to create individual paths and new kind of cooperation between higher education institutes and work communities. Then we also have to think about the offering that we have for continuous learners. You brought up that the services that are available for degree programme students are not necessarily available for continuous learners, and they would be as important there as well. They might even sometimes be more important there, if it has been a long time since you studied and it’s maybe hard to see what you should do next. These are all very interesting points for us to think about. Thank you Laura and Milma so much that you participated in our podcast. Listeners can come and continue the discussion on social media with the hashtag Digivisio2030. I am Hanna Norlund, and this was Oppimisen Seuraava Luku.
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