The higher education institutions of the Helsinki Metropolitan Area collaborate to promote teaching in languages and communication. The KiViTa (language and communication teaching offerings) collaboration strengthens Finland’s national language reserve and language expertise, as well as offers more flexible learning paths to both degree students and the staff of the higher education institutions.  

The number of international talent is growing considerably in the Helsinki Metropolitan Area. The increases in the student intake of higher education institutions and the number of international staff as well as multicultural groups in foreign language teaching require the development and reform of language and communication studies at the higher education institutions in the region.  

The universities of the Helsinki Metropolitan Area are responding to these needs through the KiViTa project, which promotes the shared provision of teaching in languages and communication. Extensive teaching offerings across the boundaries of higher education institutions improve their attractiveness in the eyes of international talent, support the recruitment of international students and staff, boost the national language reserve as well as enhance language and communication skills. The project is carried out by Aalto University, the University of Helsinki, the University of the Arts Helsinki and the Hanken School of Economics. The teaching they are providing for the shared offerings is targeted at all higher education institutions in the Helsinki Metropolitan Area. 

Petri Suomala, Vice President for education at Aalto University, considers the promotion of cooperation in language teaching among higher education institutions extremely meaningful and useful. Through the collaboration, teaching in languages and communication can be provided to increasingly broad audiences, while supporting operational development at each participating higher education institution.  

“Collaboration and co-creation in language education enable us to exploit the strengths of each higher education institution. Ideally, the language teaching collaboration will facilitate the teaching of a growing student body. This way, the collaboration also promotes the strategic goals of sustainable growth in these institutions,” says Vice President Suomala, describing the goals of the project. 

Collaboration promotes the smooth progress of studies, integration into society and the development of teaching  

The collaboration in language and communication teaching provides increasingly flexible and diverse language offerings to all higher education students in the Helsinki Metropolitan Area. The collaboration also supports work-related immigration. 

“The project highlights, in particular, the opportunities for international talent to learn Finnish and Swedish. I consider it important that the KiViTa project provides international experts in the Helsinki Metropolitan Area with research-based language, communication and cultural education and, consequently, closer integration into Finnish society,” emphasises Vice-Rector for education Marjo Kaartinen from the University of the Arts Helsinki.  

Alongside Finnish and Swedish, the collaborative project focuses on multilingual academic and professional communication, as well as less frequently taught languages. The provision of language and communication teaching as well as pedagogical approaches will be developed, taking into consideration the needs of various fields of education and continuous learners. Through the project, higher education institutions will develop flexible hybrid and digital pedagogy that meets needs associated with continuous learning and future skills demand. 

The first language and communication courses targeted at students started in January 2024 and many courses are also organized in the autumn of 2024 through the KiViTa course offering. All students register for the courses in the Studyinfo system, while staff registration takes place on Moodle.  

As a rule, course implementation is web-based and blended, making flexible participation from various higher education institutions easy. The course offerings, registration instructions and contact details are available on the project website: kivita.fi.