Since its inception, Finnish vocational education and training (VET) has responded to dramatic changes in its national and trans-national operational environment (Stenström & Virolainen, 2018). After Finland joined the European Union in 1995, Finnish VET has continued to undergo dramatic changes due to globalization, digitalization, and increased migration (see Avis, 2018). European integration has resulted in Member States’ national policies increasingly involving a trans-national dimension, making trans-national contrasting and comparison an integral part of understanding any national system (Nóvoa & Yariv-Mashal, 2003; Simola et al., 2017; Steiner-Khamsi, 2010). Both Finland and the EU have sought to harness VET in response to many of the political, economic, and social changes and associated crises that they have faced in recent years, including the 2009 eurozone crisis and the resulting “lost decade” of economic stagnation in Finland, and the integration of migrants into their new host societies in the wake of the 2015 refugee crisis (see Seitamaa & Hakoköngäs, 2022). Finland and other EU Member States have also pushed to improve national as well as European competitiveness in a rapidly changing world economy by re- and upskilling youth and adult learners (Niemi & Jahnukainen, 2020).

Although each Member State remains firmly in control of its own national education policy, the European Union has nevertheless developed a distinct VET policy agenda, which it seeks to promote to Member States and neighboring countries in different ways (Bartlett & Pagliarello, 2016; Cort, 2011; Powell et al., 2012). Based on critical discourse analysis of expert interviews with 32 leading Finnish VET policy actors, supplemented by key Finnish and EU policy documents, I argue that the EU has played an important role in narrowing the purpose of Finnish VET by emphasizing individualization, working life relevance and employability over VET’s broader non-technical educational and egalitarian dimensions (Nylund & Virolainen, 2018; Isopahkala-Bouret et al., 2014; Wheelahan, 2015; Wodak, 2001). Furthermore, I argue that the relationship between European Union and Finnish VET policy is complex and multidirectional, with national experts from like-minded Member States collaborating closely to push EU VET policy development in their preferred directions, while simultaneously making strategic use of the EU’s policy recommendations to help shape national policy agendas (Steiner-Khamsi, 2010). 

Expert interviews are particularly useful when trying to understand the complex relations between policymakers, stakeholders, and institutions (Ozga, 2020). To adequately explain something as multifaceted and complex as national and trans-national agenda-setting and policymaking in VET, a flexible yet systematic approach to theory is necessary. This study employs a dynamics approach, viewing Finnish and EU VET policy as discursive, historical, and contingent (Kauko, 2013; Simola et al., 2017). It critically examines experts’ reflections on why certain actions related to VET policy have unfolded and how they are being constrained or enabled through institutional rearrangements (Simola et al., 2017). The research questions are as follows:

1. How do leading national experts reflect on the role of the European Union in the development of Finnish VET policy between 1995-2020?
2. How has the EU’s role in Finnish VET policy and vice versa changed between 1995-2020?
3. How do Finnish VET experts see the future of European VET?

The material consists of in-depth interviews with leading policy experts and stakeholders (N = 32) in Finnish VET as well as supplementary analysis of key policy documents from Finland and the EU. Participants were identified through cross-referencing and selected based on their deep personal and professional knowledge of Finnish and its interaction with EU VET policy. The participants represented four groups: 1) key political influencers (n=8), 2) senior government officials (n=11), 3) leaders/representatives of vocational education providers (n=10), and 4) senior researchers (n=3). Experts come from organizations with different historical and political orientations and conflicting interests, which makes their insights and perspectives particularly interesting for critical discourse analysis. Experts have extensive experience in dealing with the European dimension of VET policymaking. Although most of the interview subjects would likely refrain from describing themselves as members of “the elite”, their power and influence in VET policymaking connects this study with the research tradition of elite interviews (Harvey, 2011). Most prior research in Finnish VET tends to focus on the micro-level, often utilizing ethnographic approaches for studying students, teachers and their pedagogic interactions in specific vocational fields (e.g. Niemi & Jahnukainen, 2020). In contrast, the participants in this study work with the macro- and meso-levels of VET where political, institutional and administrative decisions about legislation, funding and steering take place (Ozga, 2020). Wodak’s (2001) discourse historical approach to critical discourse analysis will be utilized on the expert interview data in this study, which is currently undergoing preliminary analysis. First, experts’ reflections on central actors and institutions in the national and European Union VET policy fields will be analyzed, followed by an analysis of their reflections about critical events in the relationship between EU and Finnish VET policy. Key policy documents produced by central actors and institutions, corresponding to critical events, such as the Copenhagen Process, will then be critically examined to identify key discursive formations and narratives (see Cort, 2011). Careful analysis of policy documents and expert interviews will help make sense of how VET policy has transformed in Finland and the European Union between 1995-2020. Experts’ discursive formations are expected to reveal tension-laden practices and competing agendas in Finnish and EU VET policy. Analysis will concretize and situate the ideologically abstract into the politically concrete, highlighting the ways in which reforms reproduce and reconfigure national dynamics and give rise to newer transnational ones.

This study fills a gap in research by showing how leading Finnish VET experts reflect on the relationship between Finnish and European Union VET policy. Critically examining Finnish VET policymaking in the context of European integration also has the potential to generate knowledge that could be beneficial to other EU Member States. The article contributes to long-standing discussions about the socio-historical formation and development of Finnish VET as well as discussions regarding its current agenda and future directions, particularly its trans-national dimension (Isopahkala-Bouret et al., 2014; Nylund & Virolainen, 2019; Wheelahan 2015). It is also expected to contribute to comparative educational research in Europe, hopefully informing future scholarly debate on how transnational policy gets taken up and applied in national contexts and vice versa (Nóvoa & Yariv-Mashal, 2003; Simola et al., 2017; Steiner-Khamsi, 2010). This study will demonstrate that European Union VET policy has been one of the most important external stimuli guiding national policy development in Finland over the last three decades. Furthermore, it will show how Finnish national policy development has reciprocally contributed to EU VET policy and the significance of this symbiotic multidirectional relationship in policymaking. Many of the main elements in the 2018 Finnish VET reform, for example, were informed and inspired by EU policy recommendations, which themselves had been co-developed by Finnish experts working in the EU policy field. I hope to demonstrate that the handprint of the EU’s VET policy agenda is most visible in the 2018 Finnish VET reform, which created a new organizational and legislative basis for a working life based and individualized VET. The transformation of Finnish VET from a school-centered system into its current form was heavily inspired by EU VET policy, which has held up the Finnish reform as an example to other Member States.

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