The program to recruit Spanish early childhood teachers by the Helsinki City Council continues to seek professionals. Already nearly 30 teachers have joined, the vast majority, as in universities, are women.
The Nordic city offers an indefinite contract and 3,200 euros gross monthly salary, which is supplemented by a bonus for cultural or sports expenses, as well as an additional subsidy for eating at restaurants.
It also guarantees finding housing at reasonable prices, as the city council is the largest housing owner in the Nordic capital.
The program arose due to the shortage of early childhood education professionals in Finland due to the retirement of veteran cohorts and the decrease in the number of students in early childhood education university degrees.
Thus, the municipal authorities of Helsinki decided to look towards Southern Europe, identifying Spain as the ideal partner. The Spanish educational system systematically generates a surplus of graduates in Early Childhood Education Teaching, professionals who often find themselves trapped in the precariousness of temporary contracts, low salaries, or a long wait to obtain a permanent position.
The Helsinki City Council designed a comprehensive strategy in collaboration with international recruitment agencies and the Finnish Ministry of Labour and Economy itself.
The premise of the project is a clear mutual benefit: Helsinki obtains highly qualified pedagogical talent, while Spanish teachers receive a stable job opportunity, a competitive salary, and an immersion in one of the most respected educational systems in the world.
Good salary, benefits, and one of the best pedagogical models in the world
One of the biggest attractions of the program is the economic offer and job stability, which directly competes with the best conditions in the European market.
Teachers join the Helsinki City Council with a full-time indefinite contract and an initial gross salary of around 3,200 euros per month, a figure much higher than the average in the private or subsidized early childhood education sector in Spain.
In addition to salary, Helsinki assumes the responsibility of providing housing for teachers. The Nordic city guarantees accommodation through its own public social housing company (Asuntotuotanto), allowing Spanish teachers to access affordable rents.
Furthermore, upon joining the educational centers in the Finnish capital, Spanish teachers find a work environment that prioritizes staff well-being and a low student-to-teacher ratio per classroom.
The Finnish pedagogical model (varhaiskasvatus) differs from the Spanish one in its approach: it focuses on free play-based learning, child autonomy, constant contact with nature regardless of weather conditions, and a deep respect for the child's individual rhythms, eliminating pressure for early literacy.
You can check the continuous vacancies aimed at international staff in the official section of Helsinki's Job Opportunities for Education Professionals. From this section, linguistic support itineraries and permanent positions for foreign educators are coordinated.
There is also direct contact with human resources, as the city's education department has a specific email address to address queries and centralize the hiring processes for education professionals: rekry.kasko@hel.fi.
Mentored by Finnish colleagues for integration
To ensure that cultural shock and the change in pedagogical model do not pose an obstacle, the program includes an active mentoring system within the childcare centers.
During the first few months, Spanish teachers work hand in hand with local educators who act as mentors so they can understand the country's bureaucracy, the relationship with Finnish families, and the Nordic work culture, characterized by horizontalism.
A fundamental bureaucratic step, which the Finnish municipality manages and finances jointly with the candidates, is the accreditation of their degrees with the Finnish National Agency for Education (Opetushallitus). As they are official university degrees issued in the European Union (Bachelor's Degree in Teaching), the recognition of the professional qualification as Varhaiskasvatuksen opettaja (Early Childhood Education Teacher) is guaranteed by EU regulations, validating their legal status as identical to that of a native teacher.
The success of recent hires has consolidated this program as a permanent recruitment channel for the city of Helsinki, which plans to continue launching annual calls in Spain.
Finnish authorities repeatedly highlight in their statements that Spanish teachers bring enthusiasm, solid methodological preparation, and a warmth that enriches the diversity of multicultural teaching teams in the capital.
How did the project come about?
The program started discreetly with an initial pilot phase, focusing on an even more critical need in the capital: the sector of public Swedish-speaking kindergartens (daghem), given that Swedish is the second official language of Finland.
An initial group of Spanish teachers, who already had notions or aptitude for learning Germanic languages, was selected and successfully relocated to five daycare centers in the city, demonstrating rapid adaptation.
Following the excellent results of this first trial and the confirmation of the very high quality of Spanish teachers' university training, the City Council decided to expand the initiative on a large scale. The new phase of the program was reoriented towards the majority sector of the public network: Finnish-language kindergartens (päiväkoti), opening a much more ambitious call for applications seeking to recruit dozens of teachers on an ongoing basis.
The main challenge of this expansion was the language barrier, but Helsinki developed a system of training scholarships in Spain. Thus, selected Spanish teachers sign a pre-contract and spend between 9 and 10 months in Spain taking a subsidized intensive Finnish course to reach the necessary level of linguistic competence before arriving in Finland.