Turku’s vocational school for the deaf

In 1930, the annual meeting of the Association for the Deaf set up a committee to plan an educational institute that would offer vocational training to deaf students. However, the plan was not executed until 1948 when Turku’s vocational school for the deaf began its operations.

The school received 59 applications and 17 students were admitted in the first year. Fourteen of the students were men and three were women. At first, the school offered training programmes for seven professions: seamstress, carpenter, upholsterer, polisher, painter, goldsmith and tailor.

The training was carried out in apprenticeships. The students learned practical work at artisan and industrial workshops during the day. After the working day, the students attended theoretical lessons in mother tongue, social science and civics, geometry, professional arithmetic and professional studies. The tuition was given in spoken language, but signing was also used.

The school did not initially have its own premises and for this reason the theoretical studies took place at the Turku school for the deaf. In 1968, on the school’s 20th anniversary, the operations moved to a separate building in Vähäheikkilä in Turku. During their studies, the students stayed in dormitories.

The first students graduated in 1951. The students qualified as carpenters, painters, bricklayers and seamstresses and one student trained as a furniture polisher. In 1968, students could qualify as filer-machinists, carpenters and dressmakers, and in 1975 courses for installer-machinist, carpenter, car body mechanic, car painter, drafting technician, cook and clothing technician were introduced. In 1980, courses for IT writers/office workers were added to the programme. The training lasted for two or three years.

Until 1972, the vocational school only had deaf students. In 1978, the first hearing student was admitted to the school and by the early 1990s, hearing students outnumbered deaf students. This was because no enough deaf students applied to the school and the remaining places were given to other students that required special education. In 2002, the school changed its name to Aura Institute, and in 2009 it became part of Bovallius-ammttiopisto and in 2018 it joined Ammattiopisto Spesia.