Student representatives presented a counterproposal to the planned changes to Language Centre’s curriculum
The processing of the proposed changes to the Language Center's offerings is moving forward. The proposal has sparked disagreement in the Education Council. Student representatives feel that narrowing the language selection goes against the university's Action Plan for Internationalisation.
Original text and pictures: Milo Kiviranta
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The cuts proposed to the curriculum of the Language Centre at the Tampere University were discussed at the Education Council meeting in January. The curriculum planned for the years 2027–2030 sees the removal of Japanese, Chinese, Korean, Portuguese, Italian, and Latin from the Language Centre’s course offerings. After the change, the selection at the Language Centre would shrink from the current 13 languages to only seven, making the remaining languages German, French, Spanish, Russian, English, Swedish, and Finnish as a second language.
The proposal also includes a decision to reduce the availability of Russian language courses from the previous six to only four. In practice, this means that if the proposal passes, it will no longer be possible to choose Russian as the compulsory foreign language module needed for a degree.
The student representatives presented a counterproposal at the meeting to retain the Japanese language in the selection at its current four-course availability. The counterproposal lost the vote. However, the student representatives have submitted a dissenting opinion on the proposal in the meeting minutes.
Taina Juurakko-Paavola, Director of the Language Centre, cannot yet say whether the dissenting opinion will have practical effects on the progress of the matter.
“A situation like this has never occurred before. The original proposal was adopted unchanged in the meeting, so it will proceed to the Academic Board for reading,” Juurakko-Paavola explains.
The Academic Board will make a final decision on the matter in March.
Ville Porkka, a student representative present at the meeting, reported that the aim of the counterproposal was to reach a compromise.
”We student representatives do not generally consider the narrowing of the language selection a good thing. However, it would be unrealistic to suggest that nothing was to be changed. Our idea was that it would be good to try to keep at least one Asian language in the course offerings, as this proposal really complicates internationalisation to that continent. Japan, for example, has statistically been very popular both as an exchange destination and as a language to study,” Porkka explains.
The university prioritises courses required for degrees
The proposal has been justified with resource matters, but budget cuts are not the issue here. The amount of the annual budget of the Language Centre has remained fairly stable in the 2020s, having been around 4.3 million euros.
Juurakko-Paavola clarifies that the matter concerns the distribution of available resources.
”The funding the Language Centre receives has not been cut, but it has not increased either. The number of students, however, is increasing. This means that language courses that are mandatory for degrees are prioritized. Resources are therefore especially needed for courses teaching academic writing and Finnish as a second language,” Juurakko-Paavola says.
”This also relates to the guideline for the entire University, that efforts should be made to promote students’ timely graduation.”
The teaching schedule is also affected by the changed criteria for obtaining a permanent residence permit in the newly reformed Aliens Act. In the future, a student applying for a permanent residence permit can prove their language skills with 15 credits of Finnish or Swedish language studies in a higher education institute. At the moment the international degree programmes at Tampere University include three credits worth of mandatory Finnish studies. Therefore, the amount of Finnish language studies available for international students must be made significantly higher.
The Language Centre has announced that the changes will not have any impact on the staff. In practice, this means that the number of staff will remain the same. The teachers responsible for the teaching of the languages being cut have generally worked for the university on fixed-term contracts.
”We must manage with the current staff, so resources have to be directed better. If a position becomes vacant in any language, it might not be filled by a teacher of that same language, but rather we must assess where resources are needed the most,” Juurakko-Paavola clarifies.
The possibility of supporting those going on an exchange investigated
The suspending of the highly popular Japanese studies for the next academic year was announced already in Spring 2024. The Language Centre’s offerings had practically already shrunk from thirteen languages to eight by then, as the courses held did not match the curriculum. In addition to Japanese, there have also been longer gaps in the teaching of Chinese, Korean, Portuguese, and Italian. In addition, the Faculty of Social Sciences recently announced that it will take responsibility for the teaching of Latin from 2026 onwards. Latin can therefore still be studied, but not through the Language Centre as before, but as part of the teaching schedule of the history department.
The language studies actually available for students have not always clearly corresponded to the course offerings in the Language Centre’s curriculum. According to Juurakko-Paavola, the proposed changes would also help to clarify the teaching schedule.
”We must make these plans with long-term goals in mind. We don’t want to be in the situation again where the curriculum contains something that can in reality only be offered once every three years. From the students’ point of view, it is much better if we can offer languages that are taught systematically every academic year”, Juurakko-Paavola says.
”We don’t want to be in the situation again where the curriculum contains something that can in reality only be offered once every three years.”
The aim of the planned change to the curriculum is to achieve more permanent solutions than before. The decision to cut languages for an entire curriculum period would mean that studying any of the five proposed languages at the Language Centre would not be possible at all during the bachelor’s studies of a student starting in 2027.
This has raised concerns for those considering doing an exchange. Juurakko-Paavola says that the Language Centre is also exploring possibilities to aid students’ language studies outside of its own teaching schedule.
”We do not want to keep anyone from going on an exchange. Japanese, for instance, can be studied at the summer university, where it is fee-based. We want to investigate whether it would be possible in the future for the university to fund language studies at the summer university for those going on an exchange,” Juurakko-Paavola explains.
Trey and student associations concerned
The Student Union of Tampere University criticised the proposal and the communications surrounding it in an official statement in December. In the statement, the student union criticises the proposal of reducing the Language Centre’s operations into a ”value judgement between increasing resources and reducing the amount of language teaching.” According to them, discussion of the benefits of language skills for students and the university is being overlooked in the discourse surrounding the proposal.
The proposed changes raise concerns within the student union about the decline in students’ overall language skills and the weakening of opportunities for internationalisation and international research collaboration. The proposal can also be seen being incompatible with the university’s Action Plan for Internationalisation.
”We student representatives feel that narrowing the language selection goes against the university’s international affairs strategy.”
Ville Porkka, a student representative in the Education Council, shares the student union’s concerns. ”We student representatives feel that narrowing the language selection goes against the university’s international affairs strategy. We are concerned about the impact on opportunities for exchange and on students’ general education and ability to work in international roles,” Porkka says.
Students’ ability to influence the progress of the matter is limited. Porkka still considers organisation on this issue essential.
”We are preparing and collecting signatures for our own statement with the student associations in support of Trey’s statement. Like the dissenting opinion submitted in the meeting, the statement might not affect the Academic Board’s reading. However, we want the students’ views to be clearly expressed in the handling of this matter.”