Development of Management Education in Finland
Arts Management or Cultural Management?
Concerning the cultural management education in Finland there are two different kinds of educational lines. One of these is something you can call Arts Management Education, which, as you can guess, is concentrated on special art form and its managerial questions. The other line is Cultural Management Education on which broader view to culture and its field is on the front line. In the latter also different art forms in itself are present but not that strongly as is the case with former.
Series "Education"
Arts management education is basically concentrated to Sibelius Academy in Helsinki and Kuopio and Jyväskylä University in Jyväskylä. Both of these higher education institutions give education on music management and their master programme is being taught in English.
Cultural management education in Finland started in 1998. Starting point was the degree programme HUMAK University of Applied Science opened up in that same year. Today there are five universities that are offering degree programmes in cultural management. The biggest one of these is HUMAK. Every year almost 200 students in Finland starts to study in different cultural management degree programmes. Students rate altogether is about 750. Over half of these are studying at HUMAK. Typical student is a woman age 20-24. Duration of studying is four years, size of the programme being 240 ECTS. Degree is called: Bachelor of Culture and Arts/Culture Manager. In 2009 HUMAK will start a master programme in cultural management together with Metropolia University of Applied Sciences.
Curriculum of cultural management programmes in Finland have all similar features. Besides languages, computer technology and communication studies students learn knowledge on art history, aesthetics and art theory. Of course the focus is on managerial studies giving students knowledge on managers operational skills (cultural economics, entrepreneurship, copyright and legal issues, project work skills, marketing), strategical skills (cultural policy, cultural administration) and research work (methodology, evaluation). In HUMAK the focus is on production of cultural services and professional specialisation including students possibility to concentrate on a special field that he/she takes interest in.
Challenges for the management education in Finland can be divided into four different groups.
First of these is the question of topicality. How can we secure that the institutions have the right information of peoples cultural needs in their own area? The second challenge relates educational aspects to environment: how can we create an effective network for educational purposes? Third challenge is the question of peoples knowledge of management education: in what way can we arose the general knowledge of our educational offering for our target groups? Last, but not least, is the need for research and researches that are putting cultural management issues on the front line. We need more scientific knowledge of our field.
As you can see from these challenges, there is still a lot to do to develop cultural management education in Finland, although much have already been done. We are such a new, small and specialised educational factor, but also one that will be more and more important one in the near future.
Cultural management education in Finland started in 1998. Starting point was the degree programme HUMAK University of Applied Science opened up in that same year. Today there are five universities that are offering degree programmes in cultural management. The biggest one of these is HUMAK. Every year almost 200 students in Finland starts to study in different cultural management degree programmes. Students rate altogether is about 750. Over half of these are studying at HUMAK. Typical student is a woman age 20-24. Duration of studying is four years, size of the programme being 240 ECTS. Degree is called: Bachelor of Culture and Arts/Culture Manager. In 2009 HUMAK will start a master programme in cultural management together with Metropolia University of Applied Sciences.
Curriculum of cultural management programmes in Finland have all similar features. Besides languages, computer technology and communication studies students learn knowledge on art history, aesthetics and art theory. Of course the focus is on managerial studies giving students knowledge on managers operational skills (cultural economics, entrepreneurship, copyright and legal issues, project work skills, marketing), strategical skills (cultural policy, cultural administration) and research work (methodology, evaluation). In HUMAK the focus is on production of cultural services and professional specialisation including students possibility to concentrate on a special field that he/she takes interest in.
Challenges for the management education in Finland can be divided into four different groups.
First of these is the question of topicality. How can we secure that the institutions have the right information of peoples cultural needs in their own area? The second challenge relates educational aspects to environment: how can we create an effective network for educational purposes? Third challenge is the question of peoples knowledge of management education: in what way can we arose the general knowledge of our educational offering for our target groups? Last, but not least, is the need for research and researches that are putting cultural management issues on the front line. We need more scientific knowledge of our field.
As you can see from these challenges, there is still a lot to do to develop cultural management education in Finland, although much have already been done. We are such a new, small and specialised educational factor, but also one that will be more and more important one in the near future.
By Pekka Vartiainen in the framework of the European Arts Management Project, in ENCATC newsletter
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