With adult education allowance, you can develop your professional skills or embark on an entirely new career path. You too can achieve your career goals.
Adult education allowance can be granted to employees with at least eight years of work history, regardless of their educational background The required eight years of employment history can also contain up to two years of military service or maternity leave, for example. According to Tuulikki Saari, Director of Customer Relations of the Employment Fund, the allowance is used by many kinds of people in very different situations in life.
“It is particularly useful for employees of small and medium-sized enterprises. Many such employers want to support the professional development of their employees but lack the practical tools to do so.”
Adult education allowance provides a ready-made and easiest possible path to how to apply for financial support for studies. In addition, there are different study opportunities within the scope of allowance from sector to sector.
Adult education allowance is granted directly to the employee who applies for it. It is based on the applicant’s career plans and goals. The allowance does, however, affect the employer as well, because in order to receive the allowance, the employee must take part-time or full-time study leave.
“At best, studying benefits both the employee and the employer. You should discuss your study plans, study leave and adult education allowance with your supervisor well in advance before you apply,” Johanna Rahunen and Satu Valtonen, Service Managers of the Employment Fund, say encouragingly.
It is a good idea to have a discussion on the goals, contents and duration of studies, as well as the right timing for them. The earlier you discuss these things, the better both sides are equipped for the new situation.
One of the specific questions you should discuss together is whether the goal is to complete a full degree or to target a specific skill. Do you want to focus on studies full-time for a short period of time or study more slowly while working? If working hours will be reduced, will the workload be reduced to the same extent?
You also need to consider how the switch to studying on adult education allowance will affect your income. To get help with this, try the adult education allowance calculator.
Adult education allowance covers a huge range of studies from short trainings to full degrees and from basic vocational training to specialisation studies in various fields, such as robotics and artificial intelligence.
The allowance can be granted for studies organised by educational institutions that operate in Finland and are supervised by public authorities. These include universities, universities of applied sciences and vocational schools. Studies in private educational institutions are generally not covered by the allowance.
For many applicants, the good news is that there are more and more studies available that can be flexibly adapted to their careers, just like adult education allowance. If there are months when you do not study at all, you do not have to spend your allowance months either.
“This makes it possible to combine studies and work and to make precise plans in advance. Many people get adult education allowance while working,” Rahunen and Valtonen say.