Marrying work and private life problematic for education minister

Reps did not parry criticism and admitted she has not managed to find enough time from working to ferry her children around herself. Photo: Tairo Lutter

Minister of Education and Research Mailis Reps (Center Party) admitted on the “Otse Postimehest” webcast on Wednesday that she uses a ministry car for private trips, including taking her children to school. Reps did not parry criticism and admitted she has not managed to find enough time from working to ferry her children around herself.

Is recent criticism in you justified?

Definitely! People look at their own lives and ask why the minister has behaved in this manner and there are more than a few of them. It is completely understandable.

How did this situation come about? A meeting runs past four thirty, which is when I would like to pick my kids up from school and kindergarten. Then it happens again that the meeting just won’t end. Until eventually it becomes a pattern.

The coronavirus disrupted their routine as the children were home for almost six months and there was very little communication. Several inconvenient circumstances have coincided this fall, including state budget proceedings and several government crises that have required the burning of midnight oil.

Does your driver take your kids to school every day?

A good answer would be that I’m very good at marrying working and private life, while the honest answer is that I have not managed it. A lot of meetings go into overtime. As a compromise, my driver has offered to make the trip [to school]. One always wants to do one’s best, but that is unfortunately how it has turned out.

Our society would like to reach a point where single mothers and those with many children could realize their career dreams while staying on top of things at home. But has the state done enough here?

Of course, being a single mother of six is no excuse for my conduct. One simply needs to better plan work and private life and probably miss the overtime part of government crisis meetings. That is how it must be.

Single parents are in the most difficult position also during the coronavirus period. Instability on the labor market, fear of losing their income also causes them to accept lower-paid positions simply in the name of having stability. Therefore, common efforts are definitely very important here.

If you cannot stay on top of ministerial and parental duties as a mother of six and need to have your driver ferry the kids around, perhaps it would be simpler to concentrate on being a mother or find a job that would be easier to do with children?

Criticism is understandable because the post of minister is very taxing. The feeling many parents have of wanting to be home when at work or being unable to concentrate fully while working from home office is familiar to me. A balance needs to be sought.

I believe that the field of education has been in good hands over the last four years (Reps’ time in office – ed.) and we have done well.

Therefore, the situation at home is not holding you back in your work?

No. I have rather felt more dedicated to work and found fewer chances to keep my mind on the children at night. I do not bring my work home with me, while my mind is often preoccupied with crises.

People spoke up in support of you on social media. Some even recommended complementing your contract with a clause that would allow you to use the company car to ferry the kids around. Others found it unfair – single parents all over Estonia need to find a way to take their children to school or hobby school themselves. Do you feel you owe these people an apology?

First of all, as concerns the legal side of things, a company car can be used for private trips if fringe benefit tax has been paid on it.

As concerns my driver, their contract simply states, “services the minister.”

The incidents in question have been agreements, proposals made by my driver. I can assure you that no one has been forced to do the minister a favor. That is the legal side.

Now for the other side, how it looks and leaves people feeling. Of course, there is no justification I can make to suggest it is something that is permitted.

The conclusion I need to draw is that I have to work harder on sorting out my calendar.

Allow me to repeat the question. Do you feel you should apologize to people?

I most certainly apologize for having violated people’s feelings of justice.

Your former fellow Center Party member Raimond Kaljulaid (now with the opposition Social Democrat Party – ed.) said you should resign.

I feel that if a scandal starts interfering with my work – to be available 24 hours a day in the administrative area of education, especially during the coronavirus period when I obviously have to spend too much time on my driver’s work organization – adjustments are in order.

I clearly see that I have not been thorough enough in trying to compromise between working and having enough time to drive my kids around.

The prime minister spoke up in your defense. Have you found time to discuss the situation with other ministers?

A lot of people have voiced support as colleagues and members of the government in recent hours.

Let us talk briefly about the coronavirus crisis in schools. Will older classes be put on remote learning again at some point?

Should we shut down society? I’m convinced that we should not do it today. I know there are a lot of people who feel that shutting it down for three or four weeks would bring the infection rate down. But closing schools, cultural institutions or banning walking the streets would be disproportional. Our situation is not critical enough to warrant it.

What did the spring teach us in terms of remote learning?

We generally did well – children were not cut off from learning. Only 0.6 percent of students reported falling behind. They tend to be the same students who find school difficult also under normal circumstances.

But we have a lot more holes to patch. Teachers were very accommodating when it came to the curriculum and new topics were covered more thoroughly and less often.

Making remote learning mandatory until spring would make maintaining the academic level impossible. Too many kids would fall behind.

How did you manage with remote learning as minister and mother of six?

I’ll be honest and say I didn’t. First of all, we did not have enough computers that meant I needed to go out and buy one. My children have attended a school where digital learning has not been a strong suit. It was all very unexpected. Having to make rapid decisions in a very uncertain situation, which is what the government was expected to do, I was more a minister than a mother during that period.