A number of teachers retiring, others changing professions means that the number of teachers available for Swedish schools fall short of the demand. Over the border in Finland, graduates are looking for positions.
So when EURES Adviser Catarina Haglund from Eskilstuna, Sweden, contacted Finnish EURES Adviser Tomi Puranen this September, he welcomed the chance to work out how they could possibly work together on a teacher recruitment project.
‘Catarina, and some representatives from her municipality, came over for our celebration of the European Day of Languages at which we had gathered together school children, teachers and head teachers,’ says Tomi, based in Turku. The event gave the visitors the chance to talk to various people informally and to test the waters.
They followed that up the next day with a study trip to two local comprehensive schools. ‘The Swedish representatives came away with a clear idea of what could be achieved,’ Tomi explains.
This first visit led to an information and recruitment event, organised by EURES Finland and held in Turku over 15-16 November. ‘Sweden needs all kinds of teachers: sciences, history, geography and so on. So we invited the teachers looking for jobs registered at the PES offices in South-western Finland who had a good knowledge of Swedish.’ An email was sent to 1 200 in all, 600 of whom are unemployed.’
One teacher who went along to the recruitment day was Hanna Lehtonen. She explains why she is interested in working in Sweden, ‘It is very hard to find work in Finland when you are a language teacher and the language you teach is not English. Our government has made cuts in education so while schools still have to offer core subjects, non curriculum subjects are being cut back.’
She’s hoping to find new opportunities in Sweden, ‘It would be nice to get to know a new culture, to learn new approaches in teaching in a multicultural classroom and to improve my Swedish language skills,’ she says.
Tomi is enthusiastic about the cooperation that has been established with EURES in Eskilstuna, ‘The recruitment day generated a lot of media interest beyond our two regions in both Finland and Sweden, so hopefully this will open doors for more of our highly trained professional teachers looking for new opportunities.’
Related links
Read more:
Working and living conditions in EURES countries
EURES Jobs Database
EURES services for employers
EURES Events Calendar
Upcoming Online Events
EURES on Facebook
EURES on Twitter
EURES on LinkedIn
EURES on Google+
Details
- Publication date
- 9 February 2017
- Authors
- European Labour Authority | Directorate-General for Employment, Social Affairs and Inclusion
- Topics
- Success stories
- Related section(s)
- Sector
- Accomodation and food service activities
- Activities of extraterritorial organisations and bodies
- Activities of households as employers, undifferentiated goods- and services
- Administrative and support service activities
- Agriculture, forestry and fishing
- Arts, entertainment and recreation
- Construction
- Education
- Electricity, gas, steam and air conditioning supply
- Financial and insurance activities
- Human health and social work activities
- Information and communication
- Manufacturing
- Mining and quarrying
- Other service activities
- Professional, scientific and technical activities
- Public administration and defence; compulsory social security
- Real estate activities
- Transportation and storage
- Water supply, sewerage, waste management and remediation activities
- Wholesale and retail trade; repair of motor vehicles and motorcycles