Social ministry proposes increased admission of medical students.
Postimees Digest, Tuesday, August 27
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The Ministry of Social Affairs and medical higher education institutions have sent a proposal to the education ministry to boost annual admission of medical students from the current 144 to 200 by 2018 and nursing and midwife students from 240 to 465 by 2016. The changes would primarily concern the University of Tartu and Tallinn and Tartu health care colleges. The proposal is based on the realization that Estonian medicine will soon be short-handed as the country currently has only 1.8 nurses per doctor, compared to the OECD average of 3 nursing staff per physician. Head of the Estonian Hospitals Association Urmas Sule said that in order to reach the OECD average, Estonia would need an additional 4,000 nurses. Head of the education ministry's higher education department Helen Põllo said that the ministry does not have an answer yet as the debate concerning budgetary operating subsidies will begin in autumn. Rector of the Tartu Health Care College Anneli Kannus said that in order to help the health care system the ministries need to agree on more than just additional study places financing; for example to have the social ministry finance in-service training of doctors and have voluntary state grants for nurses willing to commit to working in Estonia for a certain period of time after graduation.
Ministry to cut curricula.
The Ministry of Education and Science is set to revisit general school curricula and examination tasks in order to cut their volume in half. Minister Jaak Aaviksoo wrote on the pages of Õpetajate Leht (Teachers' Paper) that schools must be rid of requirements they cannot comply with. «Let us be honest with ourselves - we cannot do it, we never could teach the entire curriculum. What is more, we don't need to,» Aaviksoo wrote. The minister went on to urge teachers to teach half of what they do now but with twice the quality.