Future Leap – From Secondary Education to the Future (Tulevaisuusloikka)

In a changing world, current and future students need a strong competence identity, future skills, and proactivity to achieve a meaningful future. The goal of the Future Leap project is to increase the understanding of secondary education and guidance personnel about the future working life, changes, potential career paths, and skills needed in the working life.

Through the methods and training produced in the project, the skills of education and guidance personnel will be enhanced in making students’ competence potential visible. Tools and guidance models that encourage students to reflect on the connections and meanings of their own goals, competence, and work will be developed to support their work. Questions like, ‘What kind of work is done now and in the future in my region?’ and ‘What paths enable the accumulation and utilization of skills in Northern Finland?’ will be explored.

Additionally, the project will provide and compile information for educational institutions and employers about the future working life, skill requirements, and new regional working life connections in Kainuu, Lapland, and Northern Ostrobothnia.

Strengthen the guidance skills of education and guidance personnel in the area concerning the development of young people’s future horizons and the development of competence and strength concepts. Develop capabilities to perceive and anticipate regional skill needs and labor market opportunities well into the future. Promote multidisciplinary cooperation between regional educational institutions, guidance actors, and the business community.

• The project increases the understanding of education and guidance personnel about the future working life, changes, potential career paths, and the work-related skills needed.
• The project strengthens multidisciplinary guidance cooperation between educational institutions and other guidance actors in the region for the implementation of statutory guidance services, including post-guidance.
• The project increases the work and career guidance competence of education and guidance personnel and improves their opportunities to develop students’ abilities to utilize their own competence potential and make sustainable choices in education, career, and other life decisions.

As a result of the project

• Training will be provided for education and guidance personnel. The training will enhance skills in anticipating regional skill needs, thinking about competence identity, seeing opportunities in the working life, and multidisciplinary study and career guidance.
• Gamified tools, pedagogical models, and methods will be developed for use by educational institutions and other regional actors. These tools and methods will support the recognition of skills, continuous learning readiness, and the strengthening of competence identity.
• Stronger regional connections between educational institutions, the business community, and guidance actors will be established to understand the future working life and skill needs, including meeting the demand and supply of continuous learning.

Lapland, Kainuu, and Northern Ostrobothnia

The project is funded by the North Ostrobothnia Centre for Economic Development, Transport, and the Environment.

The project coordinator is Oulu University of Applied Sciences, and the co-implementers are Kajaani University of Applied Sciences, University of Lapland, and the Futures Research Centre at the University of Turku.