Foreign teachers in Finland face bureaucratic hurdles in proving competence
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In spite of a shortage of qualified teachers in Finland - especially those teaching in Swedish, Finland’s second official language - foreign teachers face an uphill battle in proving to Finnish education officials that they are qualified for the job.
A teacher who has studied abroad needs to go through a very complicated bureaucratic process to get permission to teach in Finland.
Lena Bergquist, a Swede who got her degree in education in England, learned how difficult it is to prove to Finnish officials that she is a competent teacher. Nobody actually questioned her competence - it was simply a matter of getting the right stamps on the copies of her documentation.
Lena Bergquist’s mother was born in Finland, and the young teacher wanted to spend at least a few years in Helsinki, closer to her relatives.
She had no trouble finding a job, teaching the sixth grade in the Helsinki district of Maunula.
School administrators promised to send copies of Bergquist’s papers to the National Board of Education, and the issue was supposed to be taken care of.
However, the board advised her to print out an application form from the board’s web site requesting recognition of her degree. Bergquist sent off a bundle of papers and thought that everything was all right, as the copies had been certified as authentic at the photocopy shop. Each copy bore a stamp and a signature.
However, this was not good enough. The papers came back, accompanied by a request that she get official stamps to prove authenticity. This could be done at a municipal court. In a foreign country, an honorary consul of Finland would be authorised to witness the copies.
Furthermore, to certify documents in a foreign country, the most important thing was to have an apostilla.
"What in the world is an apostilla?" Bergquist wondered.
She finally learned that an apostilla is a certificate given by another official attesting to the fact that the official who certifies the authenticity of papers is indeed who he or she claims to be, and that he or she is entitled to certify that the copies are genuine.
It was early June when Lena Bergquist began the search for an apostilla in the Helsingborg region in Southern Sweden. As the Finnish honorary consul was on holiday, Bergquist went to the office of the Helsingborg Notary Public. It cost SKR 600 to get copies and stamps of the documents, but even that was not enough.
Next, Bergquist had to go to the notary public’s office of the neighbouring city of Landskrona for an apostilla to certify that the Helsingborg office exists, and that it is entitled to certify copies. The apostilla cost SKR 375, plus travel expenses.
Just a few days before the first day of school, Bergquist got a notice in the post summoning her to the post office to take delivery of official recognition by the Finnish National Board of Education of her competence as a teacher. She had to pay EUR 178 for the document.
If Bergquist were a doctor, she would have had an easier time. The National Authority for Medicolegal Affairs does demand that doctors coming to Finland who got their medical qualifications in another EU country produce notarised papers, but no apostillas are needed.
Helsingin Sanomat
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| 10.8.2004 - TODAY |
 Foreign teachers in Finland face bureaucratic hurdles in proving competence |
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