14.09.2020,

Delivering Better Educational Services Together: Guest Blog from Polar Partners

Collaboration should be viewed as a journey, rather than a destination. It is an ongoing and developing process of finding a common ground and learning how to play off each other’s strengths. Sometimes it can be hard to let someone else to take over, but like anything, trust and collaboration skills can be polished with experience.

Finnish education start-up scene lives through cooperation – it is an entire ecosystem, where the private and public work together developing real life tested and innovative solutions for the specific needs of the schools and learners. In fact, it’s very common for Finnish EdTech companies to include teachers and students in the development process of their products. Well, who would know better how to make the digital learning tools more functional, educative or fun than the users themselves?

This year, multiple Finnish education companies also collaborated to provide teachers worldwide an array of new e-learning materials in the midst of school lockdowns. Even if the world is currently in a state of stagnation, encouraging people to contribute with their special talent can have a big positive impact!

Few years back, when realising there is a tremendous interest towards Finnish education, and that most local companies were limited in what aspect of Finnish education they could promote and deliver to the schools worldwide. In other words, the field was still quite undeveloped and disconnected as many companies were forced to stand alone.

And so we, at Polar Partners, decided to bring together the views and talents of various Finnish educational experts to figure out, how the best of Finnish education could be introduced and delivered more comprehensively as a school concept to those who need it. Along the way we organized a Polar Camp for building up the foundation of future collaboration. Here is Learning Scoop’s thought of the gathering: throw back to Polar Camp!

Today we have networked with more than 40 Finnish universities and companies from all aspects of education, such as 21st century technology, teacher and management training, curriculum development and learning materials, modern learning environments and student services.
Last year, we opened our first Finnish International School (FIS) in Tbilisi, Georgia. This major goal wouldn’t have become reality without the special touch of our partner network.

Sharing a Vision

Finnish companies who are aiming to be pioneers in this field, should realise that you can’t be an expert on everything. Helping those in need worldwide, creating new complicated educational solutions or even piloting something unheard-of are all possible with the right crew backing you up.

We feel that a shared vision and goals are important when working on educational ventures together. Our destinations need to align; Polar Partners for example aims to accelerate the world’s transition to the 21st century education – one student, school and society at a time.

We’re happy to have Learning Scoop and LessonApp both as our partners. As a matter of fact, their services are an important part of the whole education puzzle when talking about for example how important it is to experience Finnish education before trying to adapt it and understand how to use digital tools in the classroom to support the learning. With our special expertise we can together help the schools worldwide to become more familiar with the 21st century education.

Written by Polar Partners’ Founder Janita Relander and Intern Krista Ojanen.