Comment:Afrikaner Vill Studera i Vasa(Vasabladet 30-11-08)

Since my schooling days as a student in Vasa city at Vasa Politechnic or University of Applied Sciences as it is called today and at the Vasa University which am still enrolled as a visiting student today, did I never see an influx of International Foreign Students in Vasa as it is today.

Here are my comments after reading the article in Vasabladet last November which wrote about the majority of foreign students currently enrolled in higher learning institutions in Vasa city are from Africa,mostly from these countries in Africa,Ethiopia, Ghana, and Nigeria.

This makes me reflect back during my full study times in Vasa when we were just a few students from Africa and majority of foreign student were from far east countries like China and India. It makes me feel good and impressed on how far Vasa as a city and Vasa study institutions have progressed.

Much of this progress and improvement can be attributed to the efforts of Dr. Adebayo Abdejule who has been a lecturer at the two higher learning institutions for a time record now, the paper explains. Dr. Adebayo Abdejule had a plan and he has succeeded in building a legacy. This he did through opening a correspondence office in Accra, Ghana where students can apply for entrance examination with the language of instruction as English.

At the moment the statistics show that there are about 150 African Students studying in Vasa city. The paper explains that the schools through this initiative invited about 3000 students for entrance exams and 500 were accepted.

Most of the students plans to study for their masters and later on work with International Companies like ABB or Vacon.

Most of them whom I met talked about difficult economic situations and luck of jobs to have an income to sustain themselves and hoped the city should do more to create jobs.

It is of my opinion that initiatives like this in Vasa city should be adopted in Åland my current location, this will aid in uplifting the education standard in the Island, multi-cultural interaction and socio-economical and political exchanges thereby widening the brain scope of people. Higher learning institutions in Åland should interlink with International Institutions world wide or local institutions in Finland mainland and in Sweden to enable Åland have its own University.

Onyango Okeyo