Brahe Education Centre is the Skills Actor of the Year
Skills Finland's awards committee chose Brahe Education Centre as the Skills Actor of the Year, which has shown that even small education providers can actively develop competition activities.
Jari Aitta, the automotive teacher in charge of Brahe's Taitaja activities, and Mira Torvinen-Määtinen, Communications Manager, received the challenge award and the diploma. Photo: Anni Ketola / Skills Finland.
The awards committee gave the following reasons for its selection: The Skills Actor of the Year has promoted Skills activities to students and staff in an exemplary manner. The educational institution has started its own Skills competition without age limits where everyone can participate. Working life has also been strongly involved in the competition activities. The Skills Actor of the Year demonstrates by example that Taitaja activities can also be developed in smaller educational institutions.
Brahe Education Centre has carried out systematic work to strengthen competition activities
"Just over five years ago, we defined five strategic and operational development areas for Brahe, one of which was the development of Taitaja activities. We set up internal teams to support the development targets, which include Brahe teachers, instructors and support service personnel. This is when the Taitaja team started its operations, and the aim was to spread the Taitaja enthusiasms throughout Brahe."
"When we started five years ago, Brahe had only a couple of educational fields that send competitors to the Taitaja event, but no more than one or two year each," says Director of Brahe, Rector Jaana Ritola.
A few common goals were set for the development of Taitaja activities: increasing "the Taitaja buzz", organising an internal BraheSkills competition, establishing at least one educational field as an active Taitaja actor and strengthening business cooperation.
"Our first goal was to bring in as wide a range of teachers and instructors as possible into the Taitaja team. The team members got to visit the Taitaja competition each year. This allowed the teachers to network with their colleagues and realise that we don't have to change anything to be successful in the competition: the same good quality teaching that we do every day is enough."
"We saw it clearly that when the teachers got excited about the competition and started to believe in the activities, the enthusiasm also spread to the students. A few years ago, we were brave enough to organise the first Taitaja semi-finals in Brahe's history, and in 2021, we organised the joint northern Taitaja finals under the leadership of Educational Consortium OSAO," Ritola recalls the first steps.
Everyone can participate
Soon after, it was time to design the first internal BraheSkills competition. The aim has been to provide all students with the opportunity to get to know the Taitaja activities in practice and see what kind of tasks they might face in the competition. BraheSkills has no age limit, so everyone has been able to participate.
"In just a few years, BraheSkills has grown into an event that involves all educational fields of Brahe. We first set a goal that within two years, each sector in the education centre must have at least one field as an active Taitaja actor. Now, five years later, we had a staggering 35 competitors from nine different fields in the Taitaja semi-finals in spring 2024. Six competitors from four different fields progressed to the finals. In five years, our Taitaja activities have grown 20-fold," Ritola praises the active participation of staff and students.
"It has been a pleasure to see that companies in our region are actively involved in developing Brahe's education and have shown particular interest in developing the Taitaja activities. Our working life partners have been involved in, for example, judging the different skills categories and semi-finals of BraheSkills, alongside everyday cooperation," Ritola says.
"We couldn't have done this without the entire staff and our extensive network of working life partners," Ritola concludes.
Selecting the Skills Actor of the Year
Each year, Skills Finland selects the Skills Actor of the Year. The award is given to a person or organisation that has significantly developed or promoted competition activities. It is awarded alternately for domestic and international competition activities.
Skills Finland appoints an awards committee each year, the tasks of which include selecting the Skills Actor of the Year. This year, the committee included Patrik Tanner from SAKKI ry., Tuomas Syyrakki from Würth, a long time Taitaja business partner, Tuula Antola from Omnia, Special Needs Specialist Juho Viitanen from Skills Finland / Luovi, Taitaja Manager Sari Mäenpää and Communications Manager Katja Katajamäki.
In 2022, the award was given to Business College Helsinki for its active involvement in Taitaja events and in 2023 to the Ameo network of vocational special education institutions for active participation in international Abilympics activities.
BraheSkills has encouraged staff and students to engage in Taitaja activities. Photo: Mira Torvinen-Määttä / Brahe Education Center