News in English

Mikontalo tenants must flee from the Olympics

The European Youth Olympic Festival which Tampere will host in the summer 2009 is already affecting new tenancy agreements of the Toas building Mikontalo. The new agreements presume that tenants agree to vacate their homes in order to accommodate Olympic athletes for a pair of weeks. As compensation, tenants will not be required to pay rent in July.

Due to the Mikontalo renovation in 2007-2009, all old tenancy agreements will be terminated with six months´ notice, one staircase at a time. Staircase D has already been completed and new tenants were able to move in from the beginning of February.

The Olympic evacuation only concerns tenants living in Mikontalo staircases B, C, and D, as the basic renovation in the staircase A will be completed at the same time as the games begin. Around 430 Mikontalo students will vacate their flats during the Olympics.

Moving should not cause students any expenses, as the European Youth Olympic Festival provide them with removal boxes and cart their movables into storage for the duration of the games.

Altogether, 3,300 athletes will be lodging in Tampere, of which 2,500 in Toas´s flats. The largest number, 1,800, will be accommodated in Mikontalo.

Toas has been informing students that want to move into Mikontalo about the situation since last autumn, via their website.

"I do not remember hearing from anyone cancelling their moving to Mikontalo due to this situation, and I have not heard any complaints either", says Pia Ylimäki, Accommodation Office Manager of Toas.

Council debates over parking space

Travelling to the University by car will become considerably more difficult throughout this spring due to a large parking area going out of use. The gravel parking area at the corner of the street Kalevantie and Kanslerinrinne comprises of 120 parking spaces - 15% of all the parking space on campus.

The Tamy Council of Representatives gathered in a meeting on 14 February in order to decide on the plan of action for the year 2008. Parking space became the hottest topic of the meeting.

"A car saves a lot of time for students with families and professional people", said Tuomas Tauriala from the representative group LuuppiX, confessing to be a motorist himself. LuuppiX suggested that an amendment should be made to the plan of action. According to the amendment, Tamy should either appeal for building compensatory parkings paces, or cooperate with car parks in the vicinity of the campus. The group also suggested improvements in public transport.

The parking situation was generally seen as problematic, but opinions on the means to solve the problem differed.
"It is not up to Tamy tosearch for parking space. If spaces were allocated, they might suffice", said Sanna Joenperä from Viva, the Green Left.

Viva also presented an amendment, according to which Tamy should investigate the possibility to allocate parking permits. The underlying thought was to only permit parking for those in need of it, such as people with families or the physically handicapped.

Currently, anyone can apply for a chargeable parking permit. Permits outnumber parking spaces, thus having a permit does not guarantee a free parking space for the holder.

A clear majority of the Council ended up agreeing with Viva´s amendment, although the problematic nature of allocating permits was also criticised.

Students lack Swedish skills

University and polytechnic students´ Swedish skills have deteriorated considerably in recent years. Increasingly more students´ knowledge in Swedish is so poor that it is impossible to bring it to the level thatis demanded from a civil servant.

"According to a cautious estimation, every fifth student passes their course in Swedish for civil service with insufficient skills. Students are passed in order to prevent their graduation dragging on due to missing language courses. The field has not had uniform evaluation criteria until the past a pair of years."

The above statement was given by Hannu Niemi, a Swedish teacher in the University of Oulu Language Centre. He recently defended his doctoral dissertation on compulsory Swedish in higher education.

Freshmen´s worsened Swedish skills have also been noticed in Tampere. The estimations are not, however, as grim as Niemi´s.

"Our Swedish teachers estimate that perhaps 10 percent of the students have difficulties in attaining the required level in Swedish for civil service´, says Antti Hildén, Director of the UTA Language Centre.

According to both Hildén and Niemi, the poor level of students´ Swedish skills is a result from cuts in Swedish tuition in comprehensive schools and secondary education. The cuts have been made for economic reasons, and the results can be seen in higher education and throughthat, in working life.

"For instance, a matriculation examination in B-level Swedish can already be taken after five courses. Another factor worsening the average level is that an increasing number of polytechnics students have not gone to upper secondary school before entering higher education", Niemi explains.

In his opinion, the Ministry of Education should channel more resources to Swedish tuition in comprehensive and secondary education. A change is also needed with regards to higher education.

"Not all university and polytechnic graduates will need Swedish in working life. However, we cannot fully stop providing education in Swedish, as the Swedish-speaking population´s rights to receive services in their mother tongue must be guaranteed."

Aviisi may expand to the University of Technology

The Tamy publication Aviisi may also start to serve the members of TTYY, the Student Union of Tampere University of Technology.

Until now, students in Hervanta have been publishing the magazine Anturi in collaboration with the University of Technology. However, the University is now about to give up the print and found an electronic staff magazine, leaving technology students without a magazine. The two student unions have now together founded a working group to consider possible magazine cooperation. The mutual magazine would probably be based on Aviisi; the name Aviisi would also remain. Final decisions on the collaboration will be made during this spring.

In the 1980s, TTYY had their own pages in Aviisi. The cooperation did not last that time due to financial and contentual disagreements.

Ministry of Education: the number of universities to be cut down

The Ministry of Education will strive to cut down the number of Finnish universities from 21 to 15 by 2020. The number of polytechnics would drop from 28 to 21.

The means to reach these objectives is structural development of universities and polytechnics. The college network is intended to be adapted so that by 2020, universities and polytechnics would form 4-5 regional and field-specific alliances.

One of these alliances would be the University Alliance, which would include the University of Tampere, Tampere University of Technology and the University of Jyväskylä. More information on the further measures of structural development will be available in March.