During the spring semester of 2020, EDUFI (Finish National Agency for Education) collected data on international student mobility and COVID-19 impact on students coming from or going to Finland.

Concerning outgoing student mobility, according to the study published by OPH on 30 June 2020, about 53% students returned home while 27% stayed with the situation varying greatly between higher education institutions with some of them having up to 90% of students interrupting their mobility while some had only about 20-30% returning home. The decision for staying appears to have been based on a perceived sense of security in the host country as well as financial matters.

For incoming student mobility the numbers were approximately the same with 48% of students going back home and 30% staying in Finland, most Finish HEI quickly switching to online learning.

Higher education institutions also have different plans concerning the upcoming semester, with 15 out of 36 reporting a choice to replace physical mobility with virtual mobility is the first one is not possible while 17 institutions haven’t taken the decision yet.

The report shows that a implementing a large scale virtual mobility by autumn is just not feasible with the remaining time.

The article can be found on the OPH website here.