Spending time in a cafe in Kallio, Helsinki, in between things. Today is my day off for working Sunday, and I spend it very busy. This morning, I attended a hearing about the new recommendations for General Upper Secondary diplomas. It was a very interesting debriefing on a subject I have not yet bumped into a lot.

The possibility to get a certificate on your knowledge of certain artistic or practical subjects while attending General Upper Secondary gives a lot of people an amazing opprtunity to develop talents for further studies. This should very much be recongnized, as well as comparable in order to give students better possibilities when applying for their next school. At the same time, as this is not mandatory for schools to provide, it creates an unequal situation for all students that do not have the possibility to choose schools as freely. These special diploma schools are very much centered to big cities, which means students from small towns either have to move or travel a great distance in order to fulfill their educations with this diploma. At the point of applying for further studies, this puts students in different position which again leads to universities and universities of applied sciences not regonizing the skills gained through the complement of the diploma. This again lowers the attractiveness, and so even fewer have the possibility to get one. It’s also a matter of different laws and regulations involved, as well as a resource-issue.

Currently, I’m on my way to pick up my tripod and then videofilming three different interviews for FSS new promotion-video. Afterwards I have yet one more meeting in the city center, this time with the board of the United Nations Association in Finland, and after that I’ll hopefully head on home to Tekla for some food and chill.