President´s Greeting at the the Opening Ceremony of the Academic Year

We at 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. One big challenge during the next study year is the official, national quality auditing in our university of applied sciences. In this process the contribution of students is essential.

I wish you all a very successful Academic Year!