Advisory Referendum

A 2 hours ad hoc resident event concerning basic education and general upper secondary education services in the Matinkylä–Olari region was held by Espoo Education and Cultural Services in Olari on the 5th of September 2017. The EIS Community was presented with a “Proposal for rearrangement of school services” that also considers the relocation of EIS to Otaniemi (Tietotie 6) by year 2019. Both the process and rationales behind the Proposal were strongly questioned by the EIS Community who managed to rearrange their diaries and commitments for the day in order to attend the above-mentioned ad hoc meeting, announced on Friday 1.9.2017 around 9PM (i.e. only 1 working day notice!). Furthermore, the timing of the meeting clashed with the previously planned EIS Guardians Meeting to nominate new board members where voting by proxy was not possible, thus most parents did not get to vote.

Given the potential impact of this proposal and the lack of transparency and democracy in the decision-making process, some EIS Community members felt the need to organise an Advisory Referendum to promote a more open assessment of the extent to which the EIS Community agrees with the relocation of the school services to Otaniemi.

Here are the results on our Advisory Referendum in which parents of children going to EIS were asked the following question: Do you “support” or “Do not support” the relocation of EIS to Otaniemi?

  • 99.65% DO NOT SUPPORT
  • and ONLY 0.35% SUPPORT

advisory-referendum-results-final

NOTE that the 0.35% comes from only 1 parent that voted “support” and here his comment:

“I need more time and information before I can have any opinion. It seems the new building is not ready and is inferior to what we have now plus it wasn’t specifically designed as a school, unlike EIS which was also promised to us parents as a permanent home for EIS. Currently bus 18 would be a single bus trip to the new location but who knows if the bus line will change when the metro starts?”

The Advisory Referendum is now closed, however, if you would like to see the actual questions please click here