Finnish kindergarten opens in Hanoi

At the opening ceremony of FINE Finnish Kindergarten in Cau Giau district, Hanoi. (Photo: VNA)

Hanoi - FINE Finnish Kindergarten was officially opened in Yen Hoa ward, Cau Giay district, Hanoi, on April 7 morning.

This is the first establishment in educational cooperation between two units in Finland and Vietnam - Finland International Education Group (FINE Finland) and FINE Education Development Investment JSC (FINE Vietnam).

Attending the opening ceremony was Ambassador of Finland to Vietnam Keijo Norvanto and his wife.

The ambassador announced that Finland continues to set a record by topping the list of the happiest countries in the world for the seventh consecutive time according to the newly published World Happiness Report of the United Nations.

He was very happy that Finnish education is continuously spreading around the world, especially the presence of Finnish preschool education in Vietnam.

According to Dr. Johan Storgard, General Director of FINE Finland, the most effective investment is to invest in early years education.

“In Finland, we always educate children about trust. When children grow up with trust in their parents, teachers, and friends, they will have trust in society. On the contrary, it is the younger generation that will continue to create trust in all activities of social life," he said.

Finland’s early years education encourages and stimulates children's comprehensive learning abilities through creative play, experimentation, observation, questioning, and interaction with other children and adults.

The curriculum is designed to ensure that young children have a balanced experience in the areas of language and storytelling, maths and science, arts and performance, health and society.

Students' abilities are not to be evaluated, but each child will have a unique method and goal, helping children easily adapt from preschool to elementary school. Preschool time also helps children create a basic foundation for a long-term interest in learning later.

The representative of FINE Vietnam said that the two sides have agreed to cooperate in developing more educational fields beyond early years education in the next three years, such as exchanging high school students between the two countries, training Vietnamese pedagogical human resources following Finnish teaching methods, and developing the scholarship programmes of Finnish university and vocational college for Vietnam.

After the ribbon-cutting ceremony, the ambassador presented FINE Kindergarten with a set of books including Finnish children's storybooks published in Vietnamese.

The ambassador's wife read stories to FINE Kindergarten students with the hope of spreading reading culture to Vietnamese children.

At the ceremony, there was also the presence of the Solar Dancesport Club of the Blind. FINE Vietnam wishes to share the efforts of blind friends in the long-term goal of making Dancesport for the Blind become a new official game in the Asian and World Paralympics Games.