Features
Grades and foreign students’ admission to Finnish varsities
Today, I write about grades and how good grades can allow foreign students gain admission into Finnish universities.
It goes without saying that the Finnish educational system is regarded as one of the best in the world. It has often been admired even by other highly advanced and well-known rich countries.
Foreign students’ intake
As I wrote some time ago, a central objective of the Finnish education policy is to offer all citizens (and foreign students alike) equal opportunities to receive education and help build their future careers. The structure of the education system reflects these principles.
I do not have any figures to show how many foreign students gain admission into Finnish universities. But, I can say that there are quite huge numbers of non-European students wanting to pursue further education in Finland.
There are some English-language programmes that have become so popular in recent years such as the Bachelor of Health Care (Nursing) courses Engineering and Technology; Business and Management; Computer Science and Information Technology (IT); Natural Sciences and Mathematics; and Education and Training.
Assessing applicants from their grades
As I keep saying, the mode of assessing applicants is by checking the applicant’s eligibility based on the filled application form that he or she filled and the accompanying documents.
Although applications are strictly assessed by the university authorities based on the applicant’s quality of the application and accompanying documents as well as the results from an entrance exam (where applicable), the grades from the applicant’s previous studies may also count greatly.
A foreign student needs to study subjects in the home country that can easily be pursued in further studies abroad and have it in mind to obtain high marks or a good performance.
Both high GRE scores and graduating GPA are needed to boost your prospects of admission.
It is usually necessary for a foreign student to show his or her transcript bearing good marks.
This is where I advise that you keep a very cordial relationship with your supervisor in your studies at home and adhere strictly to his or her advice about writing your thesis (or long essay) in order to get a good grade.
More often than not, respecting your supervisor by adhering to his or her advice is important and greatly helps the student write a good thesis.
Opportunities for the future
There are, indeed, many opportunities for foreign students to gain admission. First, the fact that opportunities are being offered in the first place by Finland to potential foreign students is a big encouragement and chance for any future thoughts to further one’s studies abroad.
You only need to keep in mind that you want to obtain good grades in order to have a better chance for admission.
Moreover, gaining admission through the grades you obtained from your previous studies at home is a sure and fast way of ensuring that the applicant would, indeed, get the chance to be admitted directly into the institution.
I have previously written about the opportunity provided by the Universities of Applied Sciences (UAS) in Finland in the UAS Pathway Studies to Finland programme (see www.uaspath.fi).
Although such a programme offers applicants a convenient way to gain admission to degree programmes in Finland, the time it takes before one gains admission may be a minus when compared with a direct admission based on your high grades.
I end here by reiterating my previous point that the fact that Finland is encouraging or trying to attract foreign students does not mean it should be a dumping ground for any low level stuff.
Thank you.
The writer is a Ghanaian
lecturer at the University
of Helsinki, Finland
By Perpetual Crentsil
One of the issues we have been grappling with as a nation is corruption, and it has had such a devastating effect on our national development. I have been convinced that until morality becomes the foundation upon which our governance system is built, we can never go forward as a nation.
Our traditional practices, which have shaped our cultural beliefs, have always espoused values that have kept us along the straight and the narrow and have preserved our societies since ancient times.
These are values that frown on negative habits like stealing, cheating, greediness, selfishness, etc. Our grandparents have told us stories of societies where stealing was regarded as so shameful that offenders, when caught, have on a number of instances committed suicide.
In fact, my mother told me of a story where a man who was living in the same village as her mother (my grandmother), after having been caught stealing a neighbour’s cockerel, out of shame committed suicide on a mango tree. Those were the days that shameful acts were an abomination.
Tegare worship, a traditional spiritual worship during which the spirit possesses the Tegare Priest and begins to reveal secrets, was one of the means by which the society upheld African values in the days of my grandmother and the early childhood days of my mother.
Those were the days when the fear of being killed by Tegare prevented people from engaging in anti-social vices. These days, people sleeping with other people’s wives are not uncommon.
These wrongful behaviour was not countenanced at all by Tegare. One was likely going to lose his life on days that Tegare operates, and so unhealthy habits like coveting your neighbour’s wife was a taboo.
Stealing of other people’s farm produce, for instance, could mean certain death or incapacitation of the whole or part of the body in the full glare of everybody. People realised that there were consequences for wrongdoing, and this went a long way to motivate the society to adhere to right values.
Imagine a President being sworn into office and whoever administers the oath says, “Please say this after me: I, Mr. …., do solemnly swear by God, the spirits of my ancestors and the spirits ruling in Ghana, that should I engage in corrupt acts, may I and my family become crippled, may madness become entrenched in my family, may incurable sicknesses and diseases be my portion and that of my family, both immediate and extended.”
Can you imagine a situation where a few weeks afterwards the President goes to engage in corrupt acts and we hear of his sudden demise or incapacitation and confessing that he engaged in corrupt acts before passing or before the incapacitation—and the effect it will have on his successor? I believe we have to critically examine this option to curb corruption.
My grandmother gave me an eyewitness account of one such encounter where a woman died instantly after the Tegare Priest had revealed a wrong attitude she had displayed during the performance on one of the days scheduled for Tegare spirit manifestation.
According to her story, the Priest, after he had been possessed by the spirit, declared that for what the woman had done, he would not forgive her and that he would kill. Instantly, according to my grandmother, the lady fell down suddenly and she died—just like what happened to Ananias and his wife Sapphira in Acts Chapter 5.
NB: ‘CHANGE KOTOKA INTERNATIONAL AIRPORT TO KOFI BAAKO
By Laud Kissi-Mensah
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BY ROBERT EKOW GRIMMOND-THOMPSON
