Education and Science, Estonia

"An important period in the city is about to end as the tradition of teacher training will vanish from Rakvere. The pre-school education and social pedagogy students accepted in 2016 will be the last graduates here. The activity of the 18-year-old college will be concluded with the remaining staff," the newspaper said.

Sulev Oll, head of communications at Tallinn University, told the newspaper that there were no admissions to Rakvere College last year nor this year. "But work will continue over the academic year of 2018/2019 and the decision of closing the college has not been made. At the same time it is also not impossible that new developments can be expected before the end of this calendar year," Oll said.

Director of Rakvere College, Silver Pramann, said that as no decisions have been made regarding the future, the academic year will flow at the same tempo as the previous ones. "Drawing up and following a budget, contracts," he said. Speaking about the future, Pramann said that he does not have a guess. "There were one kind of decisions for three years and then they changed overnight," Pramann said, referring to an agreement between Tallinn University and the Ministry of Education and Research, which was changed by the current Minister of Education and Research Mailis Reps.

While according to a previous plan, Rakvere College and West-Viru College located in Modriku were to merge, the plan was hindered at the end of 2017. While the former minister of education and research Jurgen Ligi of the Reform Party gave a green light to the merger of the two schools, Center Party's Reps, who became minister with the change of government, made a decision at the expense of Rakvere College.

Oll said that as of right now it i clear that the plan deliberated in the Ministry of Education and Research for a long time to bring together higher education in West-Viru County to Rakvere College will not be carried out in the current form. "Namely, the ministry wanted that the higher education institution to be created would continue operating in the study complex of West-Viru College, which the university believed to be too large and expensive for the future college," Oll said.

The Ministry of Education and Research told the newspaper on Tuesday that they have no information regarding the closing or not closing of Tallinn University's Rakvee College