President´s Greeting at the the Opening Ceremony of the Academic Year 2008-2009

President Jouko Paaso at the Opening Ceremony of the Academic Year Sep 1, 2008:

We in Vaasan ammattikorkeakoulu, University of Applied Sciences, have many challenges ahead.

In particular, special attention has to be paid to quality and flexibility in the educational process, reducing of dropout rate, increasing of volume and quality of research and development, in addition to development of international operations and improvement of its regional impact. The last one, for example, is focused in the development plan of the Finnish Ministry of Education for years 2007 to 2012.

The language skills in Finnish and Swedish of foreign students in Finland should be improved in order to integrate the graduates better to the Finnish industry. Now that we have passed the official quality auditing in our university of applied sciences we have good basis to win the challenges ahead and to make use of our good image for example in the recruiting of foreign experts and students.

I wish you all a very successful Academic Year!