Maanpuolustusopisto

About

Maanpuolustusopisto (MpO, 'National Defence Institute') was a military institution of post-secondary vocational education of the Finnish Defence Forces, located in Lappeenranta. The school had a separate program for training warrant officers "vocationally" such that they would graduate as Second Lieutenants (vänrikki) without going to the national military academy's Cadet School. In 2001, the school was renamed and repurposed as the Army Academy (Maasotakoulu). The successor institution provides the branch-specific education of all army cadets of the National Defence University as part of their undergraduate studies and trains the NCO corps of the Finnish Army. The last cohorts from the school were quickly promoted to luutnantti.

Adapted from Wikipedia (CC BY-SA). Photography via Wikimedia Commons.