Education and Science, Estonia

Tõnis Lukas.

The minister noted that quite a few countries have taken a new approach to higher education by increasing universities’ liberties or changing their operating principles – whether by increasing their autonomy, merging higher education establishments or changing the management schemes.

“Estonia is a relatively small country and a small nation and besides maintaining international competitiveness we should also manage to provide the universities with roles that they need to fulfil,” he explained.

Lukas noted that extensive autonomy of Estonian public universities has enabled them to decide on the best way for handling their everyday management. “At the same time, all shortcomings have been usually blamed on the external factors – be it underfinancing or unfair distribution of resources,” criticised the minister.

According to Lukas, many European countries, including Finland and Lithuania in the close vicinity have recently made changes to increase the ties between universities and the society by modernising the management models and increasing the importance of the role of rectors.

He stated in his speech that Estonia has held debates on management models of universities for a rather long time and a relevant working group for amending the University of Tartu Act in 2004 already, but for several reasons no changes have actually been made. “The Ministry of Economic And Science has for a long time already been planning to include international experts into the discussions and comparisons to other countries will certainly contribute substance to developing Estonian universities as well,” said Lukas.