Guests at TUAS

Team Finland brings together all public internationalization services. Jelena Santalainen promotes and advertises Finnish education. Abroad, the Team Finland network is represented by more than 80 local teams. Each local team gathers the Finnish authorities, publicly funded organizations, and other central actors representing Finland in the particular region. “I’m the science and education coordinator. I help Finnish and Brazilian education organizations to cooperate. I tell about Finnish education system, I go to places to help open the doors, and to get Finland and Brazil closer in the areas of education and science”, says Jelena.

About Finnish education

One of the most important tasks of Jelena is to promote Finnish education. “Finnish education is known very well in the Brazilian market. It was surprising to me that I don’t need to do that much marketing. Everybody seems to know about Finnish education, it has a very esteemed reputation. It’s like a miracle – everyone wants to go to Finland and know more about it. It seems almost unrealistic – they don’t see anything negative about it. For example, there is Curitiba, a southern Brazilian city, which wants to adopt the Finnish education system for the city.”

What approach do Brazilians have towards their education? “Brazilians are very humble about their own education system. They are really open, and they want to learn from other systems. The willingness to learn from the others is something that I admire a lot.”

Interest in Finland

Turns out that not only teachers are interested in Finnish education – also the students: “Students really want to come to Finland. We were just making a brochure of Finland targeted at Brazilian students, and when I return to Brazil, I am going to attend student fairs to tell more about Finland. They are only afraid of one thing – how cold it is here.”