Training, working life, research and development

The Government will ensure that all business operators and the public sector have sufficient skills needed in a rapidly developing information society. The Government will invest heavily in innovation environment, research and product development, anticipate and safeguard the supply of a trained workforce and ensure high-quality education. Moreover, the Government will promote open and lifelong learning and on-the-job training by means of information and communications technology.

Quality and practices in working life are of key importance in improving productivity and competitiveness. More productive utilisation of information and communications technology at workplaces requires organisational innovations as well as process innovations together with technological ones. 

• Implementing the Information Society Programme for Education, Training and Research 2004–2006 (Ministry of Education)
  

• Ensuring the supply of the highly skilled workforce needed in the information society through education and training (Ministry of Education)
  

• Providing basic training in ICT skills to people at the age of 30-59 who have not received any vocational upper secondary education or training (Noste Programme) (Ministry of Education)
  

• Providing employees with further training, retraining and upgrading of qualifications in the field of information technology (Ministry of Education, Ministry of Labour)
  

• Promoting changes in organisational procedures by means of improvements in working life  (Tykes/productivity strategy) (Ministry of Labour)
  

• A partnership strategy to improve management skills in cooperation with the business sector in order to develop the national innovation system (a worklife-oriented productivity strategy based on creativity) (Ministry of Labour)
  

• Development of online learning environments within public administration as defined by the Jukola project (Ministry of Finance)
  

• Developing training for public security authorities in a network-supported form and developing the service into a joint virtual educational institution (Ministry of Defence)
  

• Raising the level of public sector funding for research and development and putting it on a stronger basis and allocating funding as outlined by the Science and Technology Policy Council of Finland (Ministry of Trade and Industry, Ministry of Education) (see Chapter III 4)