Estonia’s capital Tallinn will gain a new international institution of applied higher education with a focus on hospitality, an operation led by Finnish institution Haaga-Helia University of Applied Sciences.
The Nordic School of Hospitality & Innovation Haaga-Helia, Tallinn, is forecast to start operations in January 2020 and will have courses in English catering mainly for international students.
Haaga-Helia will cooperate with another four partners, Purdue University, UAS Bad Honnef, UAS Breda, and the Estonian Business School to deliver hospitality and service excellence programs at bachelor level.
“It is an interesting new market, with huge growth potential, also in higher education”
Asked what led the institution to choose Tallinn, Nordic School of Hospitality & Innovation Haaga-Helia project director Ari Björkqvist explained that Estonia is of strategic importance for a number of reasons.
“Estonia is almost like a home market for us, with a culture to share,” he said.
“It is an interesting new market, with huge growth potential, also in higher education – and it is close to former eastern European countries, which do not have a strong history in hospitality and innovation education.”
The university, he added, would also be able to charge fees to EU students, who in Finland access education for free like their Finnish peers.
On the other side of the Baltic Sea, the expectations are that the arrival of Haaga-Helia, a symbol of close connections between the two countries’ higher education systems, will boost internationalisation in Estonia.
“Two Estonian universities, Estonian Business School and Tallinn University both have a campus in Helsinki for nearly 10 years, so the arrival of Haaga-Helia campus to our capital city shows a strong connection between our education systems,” Study in Estonia head of international marketing, Eero Loonurm, told The PIE.
“Estonia is one of the favourite destinations for our Northern neighbours – there are Finnish students studying in every Estonian university.
“I am more than certain that Haaga-Helia will make our education landscape more international,” Loonurm added.
