Aida Pérez Oliver, a 24-year-old teacher from Alcobendas, will begin next week an intensive online course of Finnish classes paid for by the Helsinki City Council with the goal of traveling to Finland in 10 months to obtain a permanent place in a public school. If you obtain the B1 level diploma between now and August, you will be able to sign a contract for 3,298 euros gross per month (between 2,500 and 2,700 net) plus private medical insurance and 550 euros per year for cultural and transportation expenses. «In addition, the City Council is going to help me look for an apartment, which costs about 700 or 800 euros there. In Spain it is very difficult to become independent and have a house. “I live with my parents,” he adds.
He has a higher degree, a university degree, a C1 level of English that he has achieved with a bilingual public education and knowledge of Norwegian, a language that he learned on his own because he liked music groups from that country. «It is difficult to find a job here because many people take the exams and, even if they pass, there are not always places. It would be many years before he managed to have a permanent position. The Finnish interviewer told me that they were looking for Spanish women because we are better trained. There you only get a job with a degree. If things don't improve in Spain, they will end up making us all leave," laments Aida, who has a cellist sister who works in a supermarket.
The housing problems and the precarious working and salary conditions of Early Childhood Education are leading its workers - the vast majority are women - to seek better opportunities in Ireland, Germany or Finland, countries where there is a shortage of teachers. Educators from this stage staged a strike throughout Spain in May that has become indefinite in Madrid to demand that the ratios be lowered and millerist salaries raised. Meanwhile, a thousand graduates of the university degree in Early Childhood Education have participated in a selection process organized by the Helsinki City Council to apply for 60 places next year.
During the visit that the Kings begin to Finland on Monday, Doña Letizia will visit the Käpylä school in Helsinki, which has a bilingual program in Spanish, accompanied by the first lady, Suzanne Innes-Stubb. Its educational system is considered the best in the world, but even so, there is a lack of early childhood teachers. Because?
There are two reasons, explains Marius Chanéac, spokesperson for the Education division of the Helsinki City Council. On the one hand, "the Government has launched a reform to improve the qualifications of teachers: it wants to increase university graduates, while now it is enough to have a vocational training." "Currently, schools are required to have one-third of their staff be university graduates, but by 2030 there will need to be two-thirds," he adds. On the other hand, the plan is to also lower the size of the classrooms: if there are now 12 children for every qualified teacher, there will only be seven children, which "will multiply the need for teachers."
By 2030, Finland's six main cities will need to recruit 9,000 new teachers with higher qualifications. Of these, 6,000 will be needed only for Helsinki, the most populated city, where there are already 2,200 vacant places. Chanéac says that the vast majority of participants in the recruitment program are Spanish because it is the country with which it is easiest for them to homologate their degrees. «We have been with this program since 2024, but this year we have received three times as many applications. "It seems that many Spanish teachers are seriously considering the possibility of emigrating to be able to work and access more favorable working conditions," says Chanéac, who has established agreements with more than 30 Spanish universities to help disseminate a project that is pioneering in Finland.
María López Rubio, a 22-year-old teacher, was looking to go to Ireland, where they also recruit teachers, but she liked the Finnish program better. «In Ireland I had to look for work on my own. While the Helsinki City Council provides you with employment, finds you accommodation, helps you with the recognition of your degree, opens a bank account for you...”, he lists. They even pick them up at the airport and drop them off at the door of their house. What she liked most, in any case, was that they made her feel "valued."
María is an only child, but her parents support her decision to try her luck in another country. When her mother was young, she also went to work at Disneyland Paris for a while. «My idea is to try for a year and, if everything goes well, be able to start a life in Finland. In Spain the situation is as it is. A teacher earns about 1,500 euros. I have been looking at offers in private nursery schools for 0 to 3 years old and many times they hire university students for 900 euros as if they were technicians. Becoming independent, under these conditions, is impossible. A decent apartment in Alcalá de Henares, where I live, costs 1,000 euros,” he laments.
Also immigrating to Helsinki, with the idea of staying to live, are the teachers Mireya Hernández and Emilio Murasan, 21 years old, who are a couple - although each one lives with their parents - and want to start a family. «The conditions for conciliation are better in Finland. Each parent has the right to six months of leave for the birth of their child, in addition to the fact that jobs value birth. The Helsinki City Council helps the teacher's partner find a job, even if he or she has another profession. "They want people from outside who are willing to start a family," they say. Emilio spent four months in Finland on Erasmus and, like Mireya, he was always attracted by its educational model of "more individualized attention" to students, small ratios and "valuation and respect for the teacher."
