The Espoo Story

GNLC team: What were your motives for initiating the process of building a learning city?

Sampo Suihko: When I was elected to this position back in 2012, the new Mayor had already started a new strategy for the city of Espoo. In cooperation with its citizens, the ‘Espoo Story’ had been created to get in touch with citizens and speak their language. It identifies the city’s greatest challenges and all its activities, and it will be implemented in all collaborations. We wanted to involve the entire education sector in this story on a large scale. At the same time, a long-standing colleague of mine, Eeva-Inkeri Sirelius, encouraged me to establish a learning city. So this is the story behind Espoo becoming a learning city.

GNLC team: What actions did you take towards becoming a learning city?

Sampo Suihko: The Minister of Education had requested an education plan for 2014‒2020 and the GNLC gave us not only useful tools but also credit for our work. This made it possible to develop common education plans in cooperation with all the educational institutions, starting from early childhood up to senior education. Together with the private and public sector, Espoo City has implemented five cross-sector programmes; ‘A participatory Espoo’, ‘Youth vitality’, ‘Vitality for the elderly’, ‘Sustainable development’ and ‘Competitiveness, innovation and entrepreneurship'. A specific example is the ‘Use my talent’  programme within ‘Youth vitality’. It aims to tackle marginalisation and unemployment among young people. We have changed the service profile in the city of Espoo. Libraries are now offering workshops and common rooms where citizens can try out new things and use modern technology. These are spaces where citizens also help each other at no costs for the city.

GNLC team: What have been the most important achievements so far?

Sampo Suihko: We have 7,500 people involved in education and culture in the city of Espoo. Working with colleagues from different areas has opened up new possibilities, allowing us to create common education plans for the city of Espoo and find innovative development pathways for all organisations involved, as well as a path for learners. This collaborative work and creating common understanding was one of the important achievements of our joint efforts.

GNLC team: What challenges have you encountered and how do you plan to address them?

Sampo Suihko: We are only at the beginning of our journey towards becoming a learning city. So far, the biggest challenges have been thinking outside the box and implementing innovative ways of thinking. We also had to learn that somebody else might know things that we don’t know in the public sector. Additional challenges are the economic difficulties in our country, especially unemployment. Even though Finland has economic problems, we have found ways of improving our services with less money; this is a challenge we are still working on.

GNLC: What are the next steps?

Sampo Suihko: The next step is to plan the active use of the key features of the GLNC. We will have to bring this to the citizens and their everyday lives, out of our offices and into classrooms. To make learning city targets familiar and vivid for citizens and eduworkers – that is a challenge and needs new approaches and tools!

GNLC: How do you intend to use the key features?

Sampo Suihko: We use the key features as guidelines and select the most essential ones based on the needs of the city of Espoo. Even if we follow all of them, we concentrate on those which are most relevant to the Finnish context. Furthermore, we will use them to compare our key features with those of other cities. This enables us to see what is happening elsewhere and what kind of key features we should follow in the future.

GNLC: Who are the stakeholders and how do they cooperate?

Sampo Suihko: The main stakeholders are the citizens of Espoo city and we have tried to involve them as much as possible. For example, every kindergarten, primary school, high school, institute of vocational education and training (VET) and adult education unit has the chance to get involved in decisions regarding the curriculum and education system. Thus they can send principals to the city council. Other stakeholders include political people, decision makers, and parents and smaller organisations at grass-roots level.