Recently the system was modified so that now the state “orders” for example an x number of social sciences (business, law, etc) students from one university and y number of social sciences students from another. Again, these numbers are based purely on favours, ministerial whims and how a given university stands in the eyes of the Ministry officials. Therefore, when before it was purely up to the state to decide how many lawyers it orders, then now it also depends on the position of the law department within the university (if it is powerful it gets more places, if not then not).

There is fierce competition to certain state-funded places (business, law, IT), whereas certain curricula remain unfulfilled (mostly “hard” sciences). All other students pay themselves fully for their studies and there is a lot of them.

Now, these are the consequences of this system:

1. The students are completely left out of the decision-making on where state funding goes. The students vote with their feet and choose areas of study they think are more benefitial for them in the future. The state funding completely ignores this will of the students and keeps funding areas where no-one wants to study, forcing students to study things they do not want, provided that they cannot afford to pay for the studies themselves.
2. The universities suffer as poor quality and unnecessary departments and faculties are kept afloat by state financing. There is no incentive for improvement, which results in poor quality graduates.
3. In departments/faculties where there is interest by the students, but no or little state financing this means also loss of quality as the departments must relay to a large extent on self-financing students, who work at the same time or who have been unable to get to the few state-funded places.

The OECD has recommended already in 2007 in their review of the Tertiary Education in Estonia that student enrollment should be the basis of higher education strategy:

The Review Team is of the view that Estonia should ensure that any new financing arrangements continue to allow student demand to have a significant influence both on the overall size and shape of the higher education system in Estonia and provision at the institution level. This would entail the state financing institutions on the basis of actual enrolments or graduations rather than purchasing, in advance, places in particular fields and levels of study. Following this line of thinking, we believe that the Estonian government should reflect on extending public subsidies to all students in properly accredited courses at private institutions (once the quality assurance arrangements planned by the 2006-2015 Higher Education Strategy are fully operational) as well as allowing the total number of students receiving public support to be driven by demand rather than rationed.

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Moving to a system in which student demand is the main driver behind the distribution of students between and within institutions would also necessitate the reconceptualisation of the contract between the government and institutions. In a sense the state would move from being a purchaser of a defined set of services to that of a funding partner with students. The Review Team believes that this role remains compatible with a broadly contractual relationship with institutions in which institutions are expected to meet certain requirements particularly regarding quality and orientation to the labour market. In this context, the focus of the contract should move from the specifics of the places purchased to the broad objectives which the government would like institutions to achieve. The negotiation of the contract could become a process whereby the government as a funding partner engages in a strategic discussion with institutions of higher education about directions and means.

The current system of financing simply reinforces the existing structural faults and keeps the higher education system severly handicapped. The universities remain state-oriented, not student-oriented.

Those students who can afford to do so do not go to study what the state wants them to study in order to sustain certain areas of teaching (certain professors), they will pay themselves or go abroad.

Without excellent and motivated students there is no room for competitive research either, and the more bright people move away and contribute to the research of some other country, the poorer Estonia will remain, both academically and economically.

The main problem of Estonian universities is the small pond effect. Universities, and Ministers of Education seem to see only Estonian higher education space, where they should see at least European or global higher education space. Today’s academic world is not constrained by boundaries and the more time we spend closing our higher education space off for foreigners the worse off we will be. If we want our universities to be European class or regional centres of academy we need to do the following things:

1. Forget about Estonian-language higher education: This single biggest thing holding back Estonian universities is the lack of teaching and studying in English. Using English as the only language for studies will be an enormous benefit. Today, Estonian institutions of higher education work against, not towards internationalisation, mostly due to the lack of English language skills of faculty and staff.

2. Stop discriminatory practices in admissions, forget about state exams: SAIS only for Estonians with Estonian ID cards has perhaps made it easier to administer the admissions process, but it has also separated Estonians from other students.

3. Admit the failure of state regulation, give universities their freedom. Forced migration to 3+2 is an ongoing disaster that has resulted in terrible loss of academic quality and competitiveness. The same applies to all state mandated reforms that no one really needs. At the moment Estonian universities are extensions of the Ministry of Education and Research, they are being pushed and pulled by different reforms and practices. Forget about state funded places, forget about state funded research libraries: just give the money to universities so that they can be responsible and choose their own means of providing access to universities for disadvantaged students or decide which books, databases etc to buy.

I think it is worth to try this radical new approach instead of driving off the cliff, but faster.

I think this deterioration needs to be addressed as soon as possible, and I see three large issue.

i) Productive capacity needs to be increased substantially. This means increasing the labour force, and this means (as outlined in the World Bank Report, From Red To Grey) facilitating large scale inward migration. Given the serious political implications of encouraging ethnic Russian migration into your country, I see only two viable source regions, the Central Asian Republics in the CIS, and Sub. Saharan Africa. Possibly this solution will not be widely popular with Latvian voters. Well, they do have the right to choose. Your country can take the measures needed to become sustainable, or you can watch it die, as the economy shrinks, and the young people leave. That, I think, is your choice.

The other two measures you need to take are contingent on the first being implemented, since without the first measure you will simply not dispose of the economic resources for the other two.

ii) A serious policy to support those Latvian women who do wish to have children. But with major financial advantages, not half measures, and propaganda stunts. You need policies that can work, and I know plenty of demographers with ideas.But this needs money. Important quantities of money. And gender empowerment, right across the economy, at every level. We have formal legal equality in the labour market, but evident biological and reproductive inequality, in that only one of the parties gets to bear the children. The institutional resources of the state need to redress this imbalance.

iii) Major reforms in the health system to address the underlying male life expectancy problem. You can only seriously hope to raise the labour force participation rates at 65 and over if people arrive at these ages in a fundamentally healthy condition. In economic terms, simple investment theory shows why this is the case. A given society spends a given quantity of resources on producing a given number of children, those who have citizens who live and work longer evidently get a better return on their investment. If you want to raise Latvian living standards, you have to raise the life expectancy. And this apart from the evident human issues.

I think all of this applies to Estonia as well. The last two are already somewhat handled in Estonia, there are programs which support young families and although male life expectancy is still rather low, more effort is being put in sport promotion programmes for general public, healthy lifestyles are promoted etc. The nordic nature of Estonians (and the Finnish role-model) might also contribute to helping Estonians live longer, although at the moment it looks rather bleak.

I tend to agree with Edward Hugh that many of the problems of Estonia’s economic crises have been caused by lack of people. This was true during the boom times (the labour force shortage helped to push the salaries up quickly) and is even worse now that many truly skilled people move abroad where they are offered better salaries and ways of self-improvement, leaving in Estonia a mass of former construction workers and factory workers who have been laid off and who are probably unable neither to leave Estonia nor re-qualify for another job. Meanwhile, it is still difficult to find well-educated people in many areas, regardless of the growing unemployment rate.

A part of the solution is to train those people at our universities. Fortunately, Estonian public policy of pushing people to go to professional education and not to universities has failed and people are still going to universities en-masse (this year’s admissions has been the highest in recent years). It seems, however, that the funds used for the ill-fated push for professional education could have been used better at supporting universities. It is questionable if the big public universities themselves, still bureaucratic behemots with Soviet-era legacies, can provide the skills, knowledge and values required to educate them. The universities could do more with continuing education as well, offering a range of specialised courses for those seeking to update or refresh their skills and knowledge, but not willing to spend time (and money) on full Master or Doctoral programs.

The second part of the solution is increased immigration of unskilled workers from other non-EU countries. This means a change of paradigm in mainstream politics and suppression of strong nationalistic moods prevalent in the society. None of the major political parties in Estonia recognises or debates is the need to increase immigration. Walking around even in Tallinn’s streets it would be very difficult to spot any people who are non-ethnic Estonians or Russians and are not tourists. This is probably due to the effecient work of the Citizenship and Migration Board, which seems to pride itself on keeping the foreigners (at least those not from EU or US) out. One only needs to look at the low numbers of accepted refugees and asylum seekers for this.

Where should the new immigrants come from? The most obvious (and easiest to stomach politically) might be immigrants from Ukraine, Georgia, Moldova and other countries which many Estonians have compassion to. I am not so sure that a large scale inward migration from Africa will be as welcomed, although sooner or later there will also be more ethnically diverse mix of people in Estonia as well.

In order to have a long-term and sustainable solution instead of the race to the Euro at all costs, immigration policies must be reviewed and inward immigration increased gradually.

• attended the opening ceremony at the university, which was nice, especially the music;
• signed the new employment contract;
• had for breakfast and lunch cake which was offered on the occasion of the start of the academic year;
• had two introductory lectures for two courses I will teach (after a break in teaching since march);
• went cycling at kakumäe, came back to Koidu home with the bike in rain, got very wet;
• koidu home was still rather cold, and I was cold and wet (see above) so decided to heat up the sauna, went to the sauna, enjoyed it.

It look promising, looking at the trailers. Visit disbeliefnet as well.

One thing that irritates me is the constant name changes of this institution I am associated with. Concordia International University Estonia’s assets were bought by Audentes Mainor University (itself a result of several mergers), which was renamed Audentes University, with the international studies institution named International University Concordia Audentes. Then the two institutions were put together under the name International University Audentes, a name which I personally despised. So now a new chapter will begin, if everything goes according to plans.

I do not really know what exactly this means for my current employer, but in any case it is much better to finally have clarity on these issues. Too long has the Estonian higher education system been in legal limbo, and it is too long that certain practices and obviously worthless institutions have been allowed to exist.

In my opinion having a competitive and efficient higher education market is a prerequisite for Estonia’s long term economic development. The stepts announced yesterday will definitely bring us closer to that, but there are also many uncertainties in the application of the quality reform. There is a threat, that could derail the reform, or not bring the desired results.

Although there has been much talk about being internationally competitive, Estonia’s higher education laws do not really allow for meaningful international cooperation to take place (joint degrees and diplomas have still not been allowed for example). This is not a problem only for Estonia, but the whole EU: in a situtation where there is a common market, common laws on commercial activities, movement of goods and provision of services, the higher education market has remained fractured. This is due to lack of coordination: even the much discussed Bologna reform remains to be completed.

Universities are still very national entities: we talk mostly about UK, Belgian, French, German, Finnish, etc universities, but not European universities. Compare this with the US, where location of a university does not really matter that much (Harvard is Harvard, regardless of its location).

For Estonia, the best option would be to be open. Open to students coming in and supportive of students going out. Open to cooperation with other universities in the strive for internationalisation of higher education. This requires a significant shift away from the current local-student-oriented approach, real competitions for staff instructors, and, in most areas, shift away from Estonian as the full language of instruction.

It also requires that universities develop its own niches where they can offer world-class education and research. Estonia is way small for everything under the sun to be taught here, locally. But we can concentrate on a few areas where we can be internationally competitive.

Sure, young people still go to school, but after that it is no longer that simple: people learn and should learn throughout their lives. This means that the concept of education has to change as well. There is a shift in paradigm coming (or has it already arrived). Those educational institutions who accept and embrace this will be much better equipped for future than those who do not. I hope my institution is among the latter.