Over the past three years, over 600 Maltese educators have been trained on Finnish education, pedagogy and Finnish educational tools during seminars in Malta organised by Dr Kenneth Vella, head of Mater Boni Consilii St Joseph school, Paola, in collaboration with Learning Scoop of Tampere, Finland.
Apart from this, over 60 local educators have experienced various educational visits in Tampere, visiting schools and attending lectures at the University of Tampere. Another 60 other Maltese educators are expected to travel to Tampere in future for a similar educational experience.
This collaboration with Dr Vella eventually also led to the establishing of contacts between Malta and other Finnish entities that work not only in the field of education, like Tampere University of Applied Sciences, Faktabaari, Soprano and Eli Finland, for professional development of teachers and exchange of best practices among Finnish education professionals and Maltese teachers.
During the past months, workshops on the Finnish educational tools Seppo and LessonApp were also held both in Malta and Finland. Maltese educators were among the very first to gain access to LessonApp, a mobile tool for teachers.
The premium version of this app was launched in Malta in 2019 and currently, over 500 Maltese teachers are using it to conduct lessons in their respective schools. Through the app, teachers get fresh lesson ideas for better learning as well as help with their everyday workload. Besides the English version, LessonApp will be soon be available in Portuguese, Spanish, Burmese and Romanian, thereby supporting many more teachers worldwide.
I would like to express special thanks to former Education Minister and present Foreign Affairs Minister Evarist Bartolo for supporting Dr Vella and us at Learning Scoop, Finland, in these ongoing ventures.
Ellimaija Ahonen is CEO, partner, Learning Scoop, Finland