Sastamala Community College

Role: Partner

Website: https://sastamalanopisto.fi/what-is-sastamalan-opisto/

Contact persons: 

Sini-Mari Lepisto
Director
sini-mari.lepisto@sastamalanopisto.fi

Outi Kautonen
Coordinator
outi.kautonen@sastamala.fi

Sastamalan Opisto (Sastamala Community College) is a non-profit Finnish open adult education centre. The college welcomes all learners, young and old and offers opportunities for a wide variety of recreational activities and study. Learning is largely self-motivated and, as a rule, not aimed at achieving a formal qualification. 

Sastamalan Opisto delivers more than 1.000 courses for 4 800 learners each year, with about 24.000 teaching hours within the rural town of Sastamala, hiring about 230 hourly paid teachers each year. The permanent staff consists of five educational and administrative coordinators, two administrative staff and a Principal as well as three part-time regional managers. The college is responsible for designing its own curriculum to ensure that it best reflects the demand in its local area. 

The courses cover a wide range of areas including life skills, music, the expressive arts, crafts, Information Technology, languages, cooking, sports and well-being. The college also has a small open university education department. Every year the college organizes talks and lectures on a range of cultural topics as well as current social and historical issues. The college also provides Finnish as a foreign language tuition for immigrants. It is possible to study languages also as a private student as well as an online course. In addition, the college runs a Children and Young People’s Basic Arts Education programme with a national curriculum in drama (theatre studies), arts and crafts, art (visual arts) and dance. These subjects have a national curriculum. The students who take the art education studies at the college are 7-18 years of age. 

One of the college’s main tasks is to ensure the maintenance and development of creativity in the interest of the people, cultural industries and the community as a whole. Not only does the college offer a wide variety of opportunities for learning about art, practising art and experiencing art in college classes, it supports cultural actions such as arts exhibitions, concerts, theatre productions and other events. One example is the Children and Young People’s Book and Culture event taking place each year in November. The college is the home for many choirs and orchestras. 

Sastamalan Opisto acts as an umbrella organisation for the third sector operators; associations, self-help groups and community groups. As a community college, Sastamalan Opisto has a task to foster and encourage people’s engagement with their communities and therefore works closely with village associations in cultural processes. A key aim is to bring availability and visibility to cultural activities also in the very most rural areas.