The 2018 Finnish VET reform introduced a single legislation for initial and continuing vocational education and training (IVET and CVET, respectively). For more than 30 years prior to this, the Finnish VET system had been organized based on two separate subsystems, both with their own legislation, steering mechanisms, funding, target groups, teachers, and specialized VET providers. In this article, I argue that although the 2018 reform succeeded in resolving some of the bifurcated VET system’s structural problems, the decision to combine IVET and CVET into a single system ultimately narrowed the structure and purpose of Finnish VET. Consequently, the newly reformed VET system views students primarily as future workers-in-training rather than citizens with equal educational rights, hence deepening social inequality (see Isopahkala-Bouret, 2014; Nylund & Virolainen, 2018; Seitamaa & Hakoköngäs, 2022).

The decision to combine IVET and CVET sparked considerable controversy when it was first announced. Proponents of the decision argue that there is an inherent synergy between IVET and CVET that improves cost-effectiveness by decreasing bureaucracy and eliminating partially overlapping costs. Critics of the decision charge that it has significantly weakened the status and autonomy of CVET and made steering and provisioning adult education far more difficult. The decision to create a single legislative framework for VET also has profound pedagogical ramifications: elements that were originally developed and intended mainly for adult learners, such as competence-based personalized learning pathways and the recognition of prior learning, were expanded to all learners. The 2018 reform also made work-based learning the primary pedagogical method, thus effectively bringing an end to the era of school-based VET in Finland (Virolainen & Thunqvist, 2017; Niemi & Jahnukainen, 2020).

This qualitative research paper uses critical discourse analysis to examine expert interviews conducted with 32 leading VET policy actors in Finland, including high-ranking civil servants, key stakeholders, VET providers, senior politicians, and researchers. The interview data is complemented with key policy documents to answer the following research questions: 

1)     How do experts make sense of the decision to combine IVET and CVET in the 2018 VET reform, particularly in terms of its effects on youth and adult learners? 

2)     How do experts connect the decision to combine IVET and CVET with broader political, structural and systemic tensions in the Finnish VET system?

3)     How do experts see the future of Finnish VET in terms of its structure and purpose, particularly for youth and adult learners?

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. Participants were identified through cross-referencing and selected based on their deep personal and professional knowledge of Finnish 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. The interviewed experts have decades of experience in working with VET on a national level. 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 analysis. Using a dynamics approach, experts’ reflections on central actors and institutions in the national VET policy fields will be analyzed first, followed by an analysis of their reflections about critical events leading up to the decision to combine IVET and CVET (Simola et al., 2017; Kauko, 2013). Key policy documents produced by central actors and institutions, corresponding to critical events such as the 2018 VET reform, will then be critically examined to identify key discursive formations and narratives. Careful analysis of policy documents and expert interviews will help make sense of how Finnish VET policy has developed and how it eventually culminated in the decision to create a single system., experts’ discursive formations are expected to reveal tension-laden practices and competing agendas in Finnish VET policy concerning its optimum structure and purpose. Analysis will concretize and situate the ideologically abstract into the politically concrete, highlighting the ways in which reforms reproduce and reconfigure national dynamics.

This study fills a gap in research by exploring the highly consequential yet unexamined decision to combine IVET and CVET into a single system. Critically examining Finnish VET policymaking in the context the 2018 VET reform also has the potential to generate knowledge that could be beneficial to other EU Member States as they make decisions regarding the structure and purpose of VET. The article contributes to long-standing discussions about the socio-historical formation and development of Finnish vocational education and training as well as discussions regarding its current agenda and future directions (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 and polixy debate on structural reforms in CVET and IVET. This study will demonstrate that combining IVET and CVET was one of the most consequential decisions in Finnish VET policy in the last three decades. Furthermore, it will show how the relationship between IVET and CVET has been a central issue of contention between the Finnish leftwing and rightwing in VET policy development. Many of the main elements in the 2018 Finnish VET reform, for example, resulted from this decision, which re-politicized the Finnish policy field. I hope to demonstrate that the Finnish VET reform, which created a new organizational and legislative basis for a working life based and individualized VET, narrowed the structure and purpose of Finnish VET and that the struggle over the future of Finnish VET, both for youth and adult learners is far from over.

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