Education minister: stratification unacceptable

Photo: Peeter Langovits / Postimees

At general education sustainability discussions at Riigikogu, yesterday, Minister of Education Jaak Aaviksoo stressed that the upcoming review of Education Act must solve a central issue: who bears full responsibility for ensuring general education. According to him, the initial and badly needed step towards that has been taken, the state for the first time assuming its legal responsibility to maintain state gymnasiums.

According to the minister, input by local and centrals governments into maintenance of general education needs to also be reviewed. «Lately, it been voiced that the state’s input into general education has decreased. This is not true,» said he.

Mr Aaviksoo explained: while, in 2006, state and local government input ratio was 50:50, last year it was 56:44 (and 63:37 in five major cities).

«Let me stress: these [cities] are Estonia’s wealthiest local governments, whose input – regrettably – is the smallest. This problem needs to be addressed and solved,» said he.

According to the minister, Estonian schools differ too much in financing, levels and conditions. «Organisation of study, in Estonia, is egalitarian in the sense that, to the international backdrop, differences in results achieved by students are smaller. Still, the difference between schools is above what is advisable,» said he.

Also, regarding organisation of study, Mr Aaviksoo deems it troublesome that in Tallinn, as well as in some other cities, elite education is spontaneously surfacing.

According to the minister, the educational stratification is not the worst in the countryside, as some think – rather, it is so in Tallinn, as well as in Kohtla-Järve and Narva. «Estonia has schools, the difference between which corresponds roughly to five years of study i.e. 200 points in the PISA comparison. This is an unacceptable gap,» said he.

Mr Aaviksoo also raise the issue why Russian language based school still get lower results. «This, surely, is a reprimand not to Tallinn alone, but also to the Ministry of Education. We have paid too little attention to that,» said he.

In his report, the minister listed the main short term goals: increasing role and responsibility of schools including headmasters; boosting the prestige of being a teacher; and ensuring the latter a larger wage rise as related to other educational expenses and salaries in the rest of the public sector. Also, he sees need to strengthen the network of state gymnasiums, as well as supporting local governments in maintaining and renovating basic schools.

According to Mr Aaviksoo, to make the investments, over €200m of EU money has been applied for.