Information and Communication Technologies (ICT) Courses: How have Finnish Universities made different?

In my opinion there are excellent ICT courses in Brazil, specially in public Universities, even tough there are good ICT courses in private Universities too. In Brazil, there are deep holes among different levels of education, for example from upper secondary school to higher education. With rare exceptions, students have not been prepared to choose the career to follow and I had though it was the main point that could explain the high dropout rates in ICT courses. IFPB, campus João Pessoa, has provided to students two different ICT courses, Internet Systems Technology and Computer Network Technology, both the students are able to conclude the courses at least 3 years.

Regarding ICT courses of IFPB, teachers have been concerned to provide an updated curriculum for students and I consider IFPB has tried to supply our laboratories with good equipments, softwares and technical staff, and affordable to all students. Although the good environment teachers and students have, the dropout rates have increased year by year. The dropout rates is one of the two research questions of the VET CNPq project I've worked during my technical cooperation in Tampere University of Applied Sciences.

I've observed ICT courses of TAMK: Business Information Systems (BIS) and ICT Engineering, also I've talked to some teachers of that courses, mainly Tony Torp and Rami Lehtinen. I was really interested in seeing the courses' curriculum and learning strategies adopted. Considering everything I've seen, I could realized two main differences between TAMK courses and ours at IFPB: the first one is the organization of the 1st year of the courses, TAMK has focused on a big project involving some subjects aiming to motivate students, even though in my opinion, penalizing some computer science fundamentals (as I could see, that CS fundamentals are taught in others semesters after). The second difference, both in BIS and in ICT Engineering, the students only choose the specialization they will follow at the end of the first year, after be exposed to some introductory subjects and a big project involving all them. 

Dropout rates have decreased so much since these initiatives have been implemented. Students have had the opportunity to experiment different areas before making the important decision of choosing what they'll study until the end of the course. Students have been motivated through a methodology of learning by doing (integrated project). I realized talking to teachers that the students have carried extra skills like teamwork and learning by themselves, essencial skills expected in ICT professionals. In BIS 1st year project, the project client usually has been an institution not related to the University.

Proakatemia and Y-Campus: Focus on Entrepreneurship

Last week we visited two TAMK's initiatives very successful related with entrepreneurship. Proakatemia is a Business college totally focused on providing support to create entrepreneurs, or at least developing enough skills to their students acquire a entrepreneurs behavior along theirs careers. The students attend some subjects in the first year and from the second year forward the students are divided in groups of 20, working as partners in a real company.

Although the students have different preferences and skills, they must conduct their companies in all areas: financial, marketing, CRM, planning, etc. Regarding the course methodology, students necessarily will act like different business roles in some projects and they'll able to face specific situations they'll experience in their workplaces after University.

In Proakatemia, the students' timetable are split in training sessions, planning meetings, coaching sessions, projects' working, and others. The most part of the student's time is filled out with issues of their companies, they usually have prospected some projects at the same time (for each project there is a manager). I've realized the groups (companies) have the tendency to increase competition about profits, clients, prestige over time. At the same time, as the companies really exist, the students are constantly encouraged to behave professionally and try to overcome day by day struggles, with the advantage of being supported by experienced coaches.

Proakatemia infrastructure is incredible. The building is very cozy and vibrant, it is divided in some inspirational rooms, unlike traditional classrooms. The students and coaches have the freedom to move around the broad space depending of their necessities: meeting rooms, cafeteria, offices, training rooms, working environments, etc. It is a dynamic place when everyone has the opportunity for matching contacts, flourishing creativity, acquiring knowledge and developing competences.

During the course, the companies are not registered to an specific purpose, which makes it possible for the them offers any service or sells any product, providing to students learn by doing. Even though the learning process involved, the students have taken the companies very seriously and they have tried earning much money as they are able to. Prospecting new clients is a responsibility of the students, although in some situations clients request Proakatemia for an indication and Proakatemia has tried matching a company and that demand.

Proakatemia has been a successful for more them one decade, but it has reached a small group, 40 persons per year. Based on Proakatemia goals, TAMK created a widely entrepreneurship program, called Y-Campus. It is a multi-purpose space that uses learning by doing approach to teach entrepreneurship for students from different areas in multidisciplinary projects. Y-Campus focus also in partnership for companies, consulting and training, research and development, recruit students. Every TAMK students can attend a Y-campus course or be oriented by a coach in a specific idea or company.