Savings|The funding for the learning materials center that produces plain-language learning materials for children with developmental disabilities and other children who need a lot of support is in danger of running out at the beginning of next year. The Ministry of Education and Culture is investigating the possibility of replacement funding.
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Learning materials center Opike will lose its STEA funding from the beginning of 2025.
Opike is the only organization in Finland that produces plain language learning materials for children with developmental disabilities.
The Developmental Disabilities Association is negotiating with the Ministry of Education and Culture about replacement funding.
The chairwoman of the Greens, Sofia Virta, criticized the decision and demanded replacement funding.
People with developmental disabilities and the funding for the production of plain language learning materials used by other children who need a lot of support is in danger of running out next year.
According to the developmental disability association, the Learning Materials Center Opike, which operates under it, will completely lose its so-called STEA funding from the beginning of 2025. According to its database, STEA, the state aid authority operating in connection with the Ministry of Social Affairs and Health, has supported the Opike center this year and last year with 315,000 euros per year.
According to the Developmental Disabilities Association, Opike is the only organization in Finland that produces learning materials in plain Finnish for children with developmental disabilities and other children who need a lot of support.
“If the production of new learning materials for special groups is stopped, the goal of the Compulsory Education Act will not be realized. Pedagogically tailored learning material to the needs of students who need special support is a significant issue of equality,” says the Executive Director of the Finnish Association for Developmental Disorders Susanna Hintsala in the organization’s bulletin.
According to the association, the learning materials development process is long and demanding. The production of materials is commercially unprofitable due to the small print volumes. Hintsala tells HS that the center has already had to suspend the lines used in the production of materials due to the uncertainty of the future of funding.
However, according to the union, the materials are “vital” to guarantee equal learning.
According to the Developmental Disability Association, funding for Lärum, which produces learning materials in Swedish for special groups, is similarly running out. Lärum will receive a subsidy of around 110,000 euros this year.
Social- and director of the Health Organizations Assistance Center (STEA). Hanna Heinonen says that STEA will make its actual presentation about next year’s grant recipients only in December. The Minister of Social Affairs and Health makes the final decision on the grant recipients at the beginning of the year.
Heinonen does not deny, however, that the funding for the Learning Materials Center Opike is running out. According to Heinonen, the Developmental Disabilities Association has already been told in connection with the current year’s aid decision that the learning material center does not have “an indicative aid plan for the coming years”.
In practice, it means that the center’s assistance is about to end.
State subsidies to associations and foundations from the Ministry of Social Affairs and Health’s administrative sector will be significantly cut in next year’s budget. 304 million euros have been earmarked for STEA grants for next year, which is 79.5 million euros less than this year.
“[Säästötarve] is noticeable, and when you look in the direction of the coming years, yes, it is a significant saving. It will certainly cause big challenges for many of our grant recipients,” says Heinonen.
Heinonen according to Oppimaterialikeskus Opike, the end of grants is not a direct result of the savings in STEA funding in next year’s budget, but is of course related to the general savings needs of the state aid authority.
In the case of Opiken, according to Heinonen, it is about the fact that assisting the operation of the learning materials center is no longer considered to fall under STEA, but that funding for the center should be sought elsewhere.
According to Heinonen, the centre’s operations focus on supporting the learning of those subject to compulsory education, while the funding distributed by STEA is targeted at promoting social well-being and health.
Heinonen admits that producing learning materials is some kind of borderline case.
“Certainly this also increases social well-being and health, but the focus is on a slightly different kind of activity,” he says.
Heinonen also emphasizes that the case does not take a position on the quality, effectiveness or relevance of the learning materials center’s operations.
“That’s certainly all this activity is. It’s more about who should fund it. We have assessed that this is basically not the kind of activity that is at the core of the funding of non-governmental organizations,” says Heinonen.
Developmental Disabilities Association states in its press release that it has been in negotiations with the Ministry of Education and Culture regarding funding, but so far without success.
The union’s executive director Hintsala says that the negotiations with the Ministry of Education and Culture started already in the spring, and they have been continued during the early autumn.
However, in the negotiations that took place at the beginning of the week, no solution had yet been reached regarding funding. On Friday morning, however, Hintsala says that according to the information he received, the matter is now being investigated.
“We hope that this will now be tackled and a more permanent solution will be sought. There are only three months until the funding ends, so it’s pretty busy here.”
So far, HS has not reached a person from the Ministry of Education and Culture who would be able to comment on the negotiations regarding the financing of the educational material center.
Friday morning chairman of the opposition party the Greens Sofia Virta criticized the cessation of educational material production for children with developmental disabilities as an “incomprehensible decision”.
“This is a very sad continuation of the numerous other cuts aimed at the disabled that the government implements,” says Virta in his press release.
Virta appeals to the government to find replacement funding for the learning material center from the Ministry of Education and Culture.
Green MP Hanna Holopainen again says that he submitted a budget initiative on Friday in order to maintain support for educational material production.
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