Finland Education Minister to visit India to deepen ties

New Delhi [India], October 16 (ANI): Finland’s Minister of Education Anna-Maja Henriksson is on a four-day visit to India starting Monday to promote the export activities of Finnish education operators and meet ministers of education from central government, states and education authorities.

“The purpose of the visit is to deepen the existing cooperation in education projects and to support their operations and export efforts. In addition, initiatives to develop vocational education cooperation will be taken to support further vocational education carried out within the framework of attracting and employing skilled workers and experts from India in the needed sectors in Finland,” the Embassy of Finland in India announced in a statement.

During the October 16-20 visit, Henriksson will attend the continent’s largest education fair, the Asian Summit on Education and Skills. She will deliver one of the opening speeches at the event. She will also visit the Didac India education fair in Bengaluru to support the activities of Finnish education export companies.

“The visit will focus on comprehensive level and upper secondary vocational education in the three southern states of India, which have shown a clear interest in Finland: Karnataka, Kerala and Tamil Nadu. India, which has recently become the world’s most populous country, is developing its education sector and is therefore an interesting partner for Finland,” the Embassy of Finland said in a statement.

An event for Indian students will be organised in Bengaluru in cooperation with Study in Finland (Finnish National Agency for Education) and Business Finland. Several members of a Finnish-Indian higher education network will accompany her during the visit.

The purpose of the visit is to deepen the existing cooperation in education projects and to support their operations and export efforts. In addition, initiatives to develop vocational education cooperation will be taken to support further vocational education carried out within the framework of attracting and employing skilled workers and experts from India in the needed sectors in Finland.

Earlier this month, Ambassador of Finland to India Kimmo Lahdevirta emphasized that the ongoing free trade negotiations between India and the European Union would produce beneficial results for both India and Finland. The envoy noted that the EU is an important trading partner of India.

“European Union is a very important trading partner of India and that’s why I think it’s very important that the trade-negotiations” free trade negotiations which are now ongoing would produce results that would be beneficial for both parties,” the Finnish envoy said.

He further stated that over the decades, both countries have seen a significant deepening of the relationship in different sectors, including trade, technology, education and culture.

Explaining the India-Finland relationship in terms of tourism, he said, “People-to-people contacts…are very important and tourism…also, we have direct flights between Helsinki and India by Finnair which of course facilitates these exchanges very much.”

He further expressed hope towards the growing relationship between the two countries in technologies.

“I would say that looking ahead we really see immense potential for the development of relationships especially in emerging technologies like artificial intelligence, 5G, 6G, new green technologies, energy solutions, biofuels and other research and product development to combat which is linked to sustainable development are something of significance,” Lahdevirta said.